Syrenet
by Paradigm of Writing
Summary: Darkness shrouds the man's body as he's consumed by the wave of black, cyber bits and parts imbedding into his skin. He howls in pain, trying to rip the technological insertions out, but his attempts are futile as the product of Syrenet devours him. From afar, she is watching him, and she's enjoying every second of it. Syrenet has turned out to be a success.
1. Chapter 1: Foundations of Earth

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here! And oh my god it is time,** ** _it is freaking time!_** **This project has been in the making for probably eight to nine months, since March or April of this year. I introduce to you... Syrenet! This** ** _is_** **the largest story I will ever write on this entire site, not necessarily in word count or in chapter count, but by the plot and the history behind it all. Syrenet is going to be set in America, circa 2095 or so. I have been counting down the days till I'd get the courage to sit down and write a chapter for this story. I am aiming for a 40+ chapter piece, definitely will be capping 100k on it, and I'm going to try and make this story longer than Raven and the Lion which is sitting at 147k right now. Icarus Chronicle is almost over, and this piece will be the one to overtake it. I am writing the piece in the present tense as I feel it is the tense where my writing is ten times better than that of mine in past. I will be having review replies as well for this piece given its size, and quotes and things that I have said starting the chapter. Enjoy Chapter #1: Foundations of Earth, of Syrenet.**

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 _~ If the world wanted you to be charge of it by now, it'd let you. Do not fall into the thought that you're simply entitled for something in this world. You. Earn. It._

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The pencil scratches against the paper sound loud and hoarse as they clash with the shouts from a myriad of people outside. Ike Forgenson glances up from the notebook warily, his left hand placed precariously on the blunt end of his revolver currently stuck in his back pocket of his suit. His cobalt eyes flash out a glance of irritation and confusion. He snaps his head to the right, and without saying a word, a shadow sneaks along the walls and out into the sunlight. Ike goes back to the notebook, scoffing. Sometimes people could be _so_ inconsiderate.

 _April 30th, 2095_

 _Journal Entry #230_

 _President Corrin requests that the Syrenet squadron remain here in Oklahoma City for another week until she can find out exactly what is going on with the communications system back in D.C. I think it is absolute... crap, that I have to remain here. I had to trade my Syrenet suit out for a simple one, tie and all. I feel absolutely lonely in it, not having Lyn telling me what to do in my head. Whatever. The people do not want the project in their streets, but instead of politely asking us to go away, they bring guns and knives and bitter resentment. It really makes us feel welcome. Absolutely not._

The soldier reenters the room, looking unhappy. Ike notices this and sits up, frowning. "What is it?"

"I think you should come and see this," the soldier bites down on his tongue. "Marth needs you out there. Gun and all."

Ike closes the notebook and stands up, complacent. "Perfect. These people can't keep their traps shut for one minute. Causing all of this ruckus..." he trails off, shaking his head, pushing open the door and walking out into the hot Oklahoma City air. As sunlight hits his eyes, so does the loud and ever growing screams of enraged denizens of the city. The commander runs a hand through his messy navy hair, sighing.

Amassed in front of city hall, in the town square, perhaps - Ike is unable to tell with the way people behave nowadays - is an angry mob of four hundred or so, every single person waving either a flag, weapon, or somesuch other possession. Ike can hear their chants in one unanimous cry. "Leave our city! Leave our city!"

"Oh... President Corrin is not going to be happy about this..."

Standing a few feet away, examining the crowd, is another commander of Syrenet, Marth Lowell. In the sun, his aquamarine hair, like Ike's draws all the attention to him, towering over the mass of enraged citizens, a sniper rifle hooked under the crook of his arm. Marth looks over, seeing that Ike has been withdrawn from his indoor retreat of writing and solitude.

"I was wondering if you had were dozing off with a nap!" Marth yells at him over the shouting.

"How long have they been out here protesting?"

"Not long. Just an hour or so. Haven't had any casualties, but I don't want to say that'll be the case forever. We're trying to get in touch with the White House on what to do, but nothing's getting through. I think the jamming of our communications system is happening once again... Corrin has instructed us to not open fire on them. None of the soldiers here have bullets in their guns, her orders."

"We're standing for that?" Ike retorts.

"I mean-"

"No one here is armed in case _they_ are?" Ike gestures wildly at the crowd amassing.

"Just the two immediate soldiers on our left and right don't have magazines. Everyone else _is_ armed, I promise you. Everything else is locked and loaded," Marth reassures.

"It isn't that reassuring."

"Trust me. Corrin-"

"I know what Madam Corrin said, Marth!" Ike growls. "But, dammit, man... this is a protest that could eventually turn into a riot."

Marth opens his mouth wide in objection, but decides to not pursue that avenue. The more buff of the two rolls his eyes, looking over the crowd some more.

Ike mulls over the details of the Oklahoma project in his head. Syrenet, in all simplistic terms, is a scientific breakthrough created by Washington D.C where they could form soldiers into super machines, akin to a Captain America or known otherwise. The people would be dressed in metallic suits of armor, hybrid technologies that each had something called an AI Unit in the back of their head, a holographic person who would be their God, whispering, speaking, demanding... something quite freaky actually if Ike puts his mind to it. Backed by the entire national U.S government, the implementation of Syrenet went into effect, the headquarters being in D.C. Almost immediately, it became knowledgeable of exactly what power this project contained, and soon a branch is added, like the FBI or CIA, though minimalistic at first.

However, with the creation of Syrenet, comes along a resistance group. Rebels and inhabitants of America who feel that the creation of this 'project' would be the cause of dictatorship, totalitarian rule. In the genuine mission statement of Syrenet, this is not the case, even as the president, Corrin Etch, swears it on the Holy Book. Syrenet had been simply created to act as an enhancement towards the military of the United States government, and there were those in the streets who expanded it to something more.

Marth senses some trouble down to his left, and flicks his wrist at a few operatives behind him. Ike finds there to be no reason for this, if no one is armed as the commander wants to say. "I don't know what they're trying to accomplish by simply yelling at us. You can't expect the entire government to shut down the Syrenet project because of a few rebels..."

"I don't think that's what they're after..." Ike mutters, and something down in the mass catches his eye. Perhaps a few hundred yards away is a girl, maybe no older than twenty or so, chanting, something in her hand. On further inspection, Ike can see that the object appears to be a strip of paper, but the writing on it being illegible at such a distance. There's a fire in the girl's voice, her blonde fishtail braids snapping in the wind, and Ike's eyes narrow. He points over at her. "Who's that? She is seeming to channel all of this anger and direct it."

His comrade follows his gaze, eyebrows raising. "That's Sheik Braring," Marth says. "She's come down here every single day for the past week to protest our stay. She hasn't done much more than scream insults at us. Doesn't seem to be armed."

In a matter of moments, the intensity of the 'riot', if Ike is even compelled to call it such, shifted. It all shifted. A rioter began to break out from the crowd, something in his hand. Ike's eyes widen, realizing that it is the thing in Sheik's hands, which wasn't a piece of paper at all, but a garrote. A soldier steps up bravely to the man, gun cocked and loaded.

"Get back, sir!" he orders.

"You will not control us with that cyber technology," the man snaps back, tightening his wrists. "You will not!"

"I said to get back!" the soldier repeats, evidently loading the gun.

The man lunges forward perhaps out of sheer insanity, pressing the barrel of the gun to his forehead. That's when Ike understands what they're dealing with. Intelligence. And that's the guy who has no bullets in his clip. This is going to be bad, _oh so bad._ The man clicks the trigger of the gun for the soldier, and when there's no spraying of copper everywhere, he screams out to the crowd. "No bullets! There's no bullets!"

All living hell breaks loose.

The soldier tries to get back, but the man has tied the garrote around his neck, strangling the poor sap for all its worth. Ike curses, grabbing Marth by the wrist as he pulls them back behind a column. He retrieves his revolver, looking around the column. For a singular moment, the crowd lies in a strange purgatory of confusion, before Sheik in the front screams out another order, and the entire mass of four hundred charges like ants.

"Oh, you've got be kidding me!" Marth swears. Ike spins from behind the column, aiming down the barrel of his gun, firing. A bullet lodges itself in the throat of a poor fellow who went running for the front door of the citadel. Marth grips his sniper rifle, nodding at Ike before running into the building, Ike taking shots at given opportunities. Masses of people are running up the steps, some carrying Molotov cocktails, a few having bricks, one burning the American flag before throwing it at the roof of city hall.

Above, gunmen are firing into the crowd, a pelting rain of silver and halcyon darts imbedding nerve deep, before exploding, blood and bone matter flaying everywhere. Ike curses, running into the citadel. He barely has time to close the door and back away from it before Sheik steals a guard's RPG and fires it. Fire lacerates the bluenette's back as he goes flying into the room. He slams into a table, copper filling his mouth.

Ike shakes his head, groaning. Throwing a glance back at the smoky entrance, insurgents flood in, stabbing and shooting. Looks like he isn't going to be staying here. He knew this wasn't going to ever work out. He takes to the stairs, shouting into the cuff of his suit. "Immediate backup! I repeat, immediate backup! Hostiles have broken loose, we're under attack!" He gains a second to fire behind him, an explosion following the release of his shot.

Up to the roof he goes, where Marth is located, crouched beneath a beam, taking lucky shots at every chance he gets. Though the ensuing chaos and melee had only broken out not even two minutes ago, the cobblestone ground is soaked a putrid crimson, the smell of burnt flesh and the loud, dying screams of men and women ringing out in a vicious echo.

"How things like this can even happen is beyond," Marth grits, ducking under a bullet, "Is beyond me!"

"We can't stay here. We're going to be a sitting duck in water..." Ike reloads his magazine.

"Now is not the time for your silly little sayings, Ike. Any luck with the radio?"

"No one has responded back... so maybe not."

The man's eyes follow a projectile as it is thrown into the air, landing by Marth's elbow. A noticeable ticking sound is emerging from the device, a light following it by bleeping red. Ike pulls at his comrade's back, nearly wrenching him from his spot as he throws him over his shoulder. "Watch out!" Ike screams, racing from the roof as the explosive rips the roof of the building apart.

Ike loses his hold on Marth, the wave of energy causing him to fly into the air, slamming him on the following roof of the subsequent apartment. His skull crashes into concrete, and the commander's entire body goes completely numb. Blood is starting to pool around his entire body, and the last thing he sees before black ants burrow themselves into his eyes is Marth's weak and straggled body landing on its feet, before the commander flops to the roof face first.

* * *

 _May 1st, 2095_

 _Journal Entry #231_

 _I'm lucky to even be alive. I'm lucky to have walked away with my non-writing hand being the only thing broken, and a concussion that the doctors immediately treated by getting me back in my Syrenet suit. Marth is alive too. I- I don't know what I would've done had be died on my watch. Everything happened so quickly, I am still unable and unsure of how to process it. From what I've been informed of, the group that amassed in front of the Oklahoma city building were all insurgents belonging to the Midwest rebel group nicknamed the Dust Devils of Syrenet by command. The girl I highlighted from the crowd, Sheik Barring or whatever her name is, is the leader of that entire force, roughly five thousand strong. I want to go and drop a bomb. President Corrin says that is not allowed, and I'm going to make sure that the next time I see her, she knows how stupid it is to reject that idea._

 _Including Marth and myself, the only survivors from Oklahoma City were us, three other soldiers from Marth's Syrenet unit, and three human relation officers who weren't even in the town square at the time of the attack. That's what the news is calling it, an attack on Oklahoma City's town hall, and since I've heard it used about twenty million times from everyone since I got in this helicopter, I might as well be using it too._

 _President Corrin is not happy, and I have reasonable understanding to agree with her. Vice President Robin is being much more lenient on us. She's never been in a day of battle and is already coddling us. But, back to Corrin, she's being as vicious to us as she always is. I wish... actually, I don't want to wish for anything from our president. She'll never change, but it still means that I am not happy at her nor her decision making. Despite the fact that Syrenet thought the state of Oklahoma was a safe zone with mild resistance, it is no excuse to under staff us. Forty soldiers and government officials would not be enough to quash two hundred people, let alone double that with the manpower they had._

 _Which brings me to my next concern as I write this. Where would a rebel group get RPG's and grenades with such power? In my ranting to madam Corrin, I'll list that one as well. The helicopter is going back to Washington D.C where Marth and I will be given a few days recovery, before Corrin has to send Marth up to Detroit for an entirely other cause that is in the dark to me now._

 _I don't know where the mission went wrong. It was simple. Go into Oklahoma City and create a Syrenet substation, simply a factory to help make more suits, yet the people resisted, resisting for maybe no other cause than that they could. She's abandoning the project for trying to establish a branch out in the Midwest. Too many insurgents, and with the news broadcasting such a successful attack, I can see why._

 _I also don't know how Syrenet itself is going to take this. Shulk demanded that he be out in the front lines with Marth and I, but Corrin refused. For having as many units as we do, you would've thought that she could've given us a few more. Perhaps if there we more reinforcements, there'd be more to tell the tale. I'm glad I'm not into politics, only the firing of guns and getting the job done._

 _I love the Syrenet cause, but not necessarily the Syrenet work. Looking back at how the whole operation went down, there is much that needs to be discussed._

 _The Oklahoma Syrenet project is a failure._

 _Looks like we need to regroup._

 _~ Ike Forgenson, Commander of Syrenet Unit Charlie, Unit #C_

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 **Alright! There we are folks, Chapter #1: Foundations of Earth, of Syrenet. Yes, while this may seem entirely confusing to you, it's done for a specific reason. I've dropped you, just like in Icarus Chronicle, straight into the middle of everything and we'll build from there. And sadly for everyone who may be thinking this, Marth and Ike are not the main characters of this piece, they're moreso supporting the other cast that we'll soon come to know about. Bottom line, Syrenet is an intelligence organization geared as a branch of the military for creating technological advancements and such for the country, but clearly not everyone is on board. The chapters from here on out will be longer, no chapter will be shorter than 3k by any stretch of means. Sometimes there'll be journal entries like the ones Ike spends his time creating, or AI logs which you'll get to see later on as we further into this piece. If you are hyped and ready for Syrenet, please make sure to follow or favorite this story so you do not miss an update. I'll be updating once a week, though the day may vary depending on schedule. Balancing three WIP's is quite the momentous thing to do, and I'll try my darn hardest to stay on track. Thank you so much for reading and checking in, and I hope that I will see you again for Chapter #2: Glass Ceilings. Have an amazing day! Love you all! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	2. Chapter 2: Glass Ceilings

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, #2: Glass Ceilings. Last chapter was the very beginning, dropping you straight into this world I've created and am about to establish. I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas, as I know I did and am looking forward to the new year of writing and what's in store (as in just last night around 11 PM I thought of once again a new story to write, but I definitely can't start that until like January or February because time constraints... urgh). Alright, so time for some review replies! (You review, I reply to them. I only do them for major, _major_ stories such as this one.)**

 **Mr. Squirtle6- I'm glad you think so! It's great to hear from you again on my writing as I've missed your comments. The log idea will happen a lot, but there are chapters where I don't think it's needed. I hope this is satisfying your thirst for more.**

 **SeththeGreat- You're in luck Seth! Snake _is_ in this story, though he isn't a main character. I actually forget about him a lot when writing and prepping for stories in this fandom as I simply gloss over him with how often I write about the other male characters. (He's actually got a spot in my new idea, the one I mentioned above, Erasmus Coffin). **

**Ike4ever- I knew I'd see you! Long review, like holy crap. Yeah, I made sure to get us billowing right out of the gate as the next few chapters aren't as action packed and are moreso drama filled. Syrenet is going to be expanded on clearly, as I've given you guys just the loose info to start off with. And sorry about not having Ike as the main character, but he'll appear in a lot of chapters in the middle and end of the story actually.**

 **Maxcy Leland- Normally where Ike4ever goes, you follow. Glad to see you here for the story given sometimes my subject matters and topics are turn-offs for you. Glad you like my character choices, as they're only about to get even better. (The planning I've put in this story is almost kind of unreal from a standpoint of where I found all the time to do so). Hmm... errors, huh? I'll have to go back and comb over them. Thanks for bringing them to my attention!**

 **Retronym- Eyy, good to see you again! I've been following the story with Robin (Geneticist Project or something like that, right?), and man, I'm so proud of you for writing that. Glad to see your work in the archive. Thanks for peeking your head in this little spring of a project. Hope you like what is to come.**

 **WHEW, got through them. Alright, here's Chapter #2: Glass Ceilings, of Syrenet. Enjoy!**

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 _~ Time does not forgive, but instead decides to hold grudges depending on the severity of your sin. I rise and fall every morning, but my breathing still feels labored. Atone for the things you say, the things you did, and the things you will do as there's no certainty of any kind they'll forgive you back. Time does not forgive, time does not forget. You shouldn't either._

* * *

The tunnel lights of the tram pass over colonel Shulk Robert's notebook in a flickering daze, elongated stripes of shadows and brightness colliding together in a fractured piece of art. He looks up, eyes passing over the agglomeration of signs and directories in the metro system of Washington D.C. The man chews on the inside of his cheek, placing the notebook and pencil in his hand down. He must've been nearing his stop soon. The only reason why Shulk even knew this is because there was a certain window in the corner that the station had never fixed meaning the odd presentation of light would fall on his spot as he sat in the same place every time he rode the metro. After riding the metro for ten years, one's mind starts to become affixed on the details.

Details are the causes behind why Shulk constantly scrubs the red out of his arms, until his flesh is raw and pink.

Shulk glances at his notebook, the doors hadn't opened yet, so he could very well return back to his idle busy work. The pencil sketches on the pallid paper effortlessly, the colonel swiping up and down, shading in, and then in a beautiful, tactful swirl of the pencil tip, a drawing of his wife completed under the faithful eye of shadow. Delicate, swirled blonde hair resting quietly at her shoulders, sparkling emerald eyes... almost a complete lookalike to her husband. Shulk flexes his hand, tightening the finger where his wedding ring rests, the dainty halcyon band glimmering off the metro lights.

A kid nearby sneezes, clearly sick from his bright red nose and long jacket. The two lock eyes, and Shulk smiles briefly. He always wanted a child. But that is before- the commander breaks off, banishing the thought from his conscious, and the kid goes back to sneezing. The doors open up and Shulk lets out a long sigh. He hates this part of his day, downright despises it with every moral fiber of his being. Why did she request him today of all times? After the disaster in Oklahoma City, he certainly did not want to stare down her wrath, shuffling his feet awkwardly and muttering half-baked apologies.

Sounds of hustle and bustle fill the terminal as Shulk jogs up the stairs out into the D.C sunlight. Cheerful blue skies greet the colonel, and he scowls. Too cheery for him at a time like this. So many lives on the line, and here he is doing simpleton work such as reports and catching up with the most powerful person in the world. Such a way to start his week. He places his hands into the pockets of his jacket, shuffling onward. " _Too happy for me. There needs to be a law or limit or something on how many sidewalk chalk creations can fill up a pathway before you can see anything,"_ he thinks to himself. Shulk does not remember when he started changing into some old sot. He does not like it, but there isn't much he can do to fix it now, he supposes.

Nightmares visit his mind as he walks, and all the possibilities of certain death seem to catch up like a slithering snake that hisses venomous whispers into his left ear. The colonel twitches in his neck. He had too many cups of coffee this morning, and the excessive amount of painkillers did nothing to help raise his self-esteem. Clusters of children race by, giggling and basking in the sunlight while Shulk bundles himself deeper into the crevice of his inner cave filled to the brim with self desperation and depression. The happiness of everyone in D.C festers on his skin, irritating him brain deep till it threatens to spill over like a vat of scalding hot water being prepped to help boil potatoes. The constant hammering in his neck causes Shulk to whine to himself as he walks down the streets of D.C.

Shulk stops in front of perhaps the most recognizable building in all of America. Standing stock still on Pennsylvania Avenue, decked in a glorious and enthralling coat of white paint, the American flag blowing in the breeze, is the White House. Inside there lies perhaps the most important person in the world, which could certainly be a stretch, Corrin Etch, president of the United States. She's loved by the populace, and Shulk at dinner parties during his down time will shake his head in confusion at how that is. How someone could be so sneaky yet sweet is like a toddler who robs a blind man. He nods at the guard at the gate and shuffles inside.

He knows the layout of the mansion up to what paintings sit on the walls on what floors, or where particular ingredients are on the kitchen shelves. This is only because Shulk Roberts visits the White House at least a hundred times a year for debriefings and other miscellaneous visits. And every single forsaken time he gets offered a tour by a uniformed official of any and all changes in the estate, which Shulk will then flash one of his _'I hate you, but need to stay professional for the cameras'_ grin. Then, once he's safe and out of harms way, he retreats to the bathroom where he'll scream at his reflection in the mirror at how people need to start recognizing his face and understanding that this guy visits more than they do that he doesn't even work there!

The colonel walks through the metal detector, retrieving his gun which he had placed on the table for inspection. He digs into his pocket for his wallet, flashing all the proper credentials and such that permitted him to carry a weapon onto the premise of the president. Several guards let him through a quicker line of routine and regulation to an elevator. Shulk nods at them and steps into it, the golden door closing around him. Shulk Roberts downright hates elevators, but it's better than climbing up many, _many_ flights of stairs in a jacket to sweat up a storm. Up the elevator goes, to the Oval Office of the White House.

Shulk looks at his reflection in the glossy walls of the elevator, currently dismayed by the abysmal appearance. He runs a hand through his unkempt wave of blonde hair, reminiscent of the woman he drew on the notebook, which was currently in his back pocket of his jeans. Shulk's sharp and vivid diamond eyes pierce a gaze through the elevator which shakes. He's unsure whether or not the metallic object actually shook in a moment of magic or if it was mechanical failure. However, something about his reflection looks down, and Shulk pinpoints it in seconds. His eyes are furrowed in, the commander's stare is pointed and sharp.

Today is not a day to mess with colonel Shulk Roberts or you'd get the bull by the horns. One thing to set him off course and cause him to snap, and the blonde would very well perhaps rear his head in at you and charge like a bucking bronco to tackle the offender. Over the elevator's sound system, a horrific, gallantly abhorrent song plays, causing Shulk to develop the innate desire in him to shear his ears off with a cheese grater. _Slice. Dice._ Shulk is messed up, for sure.

The elevator dings when it arrives on his floor and Shulk steps out of the golden prison. Smells of freshly baked cookies wafts through the hallway, and the colonel smiles to himself, taking a huge sniff of the delectable air. Who made or requested cookies? Shulk follows the smell like a bloodhound until he almost literally slams his head into a closed, wooden door. He had been so transfixed on the smell which reminded him of glazed over childhoods, Shulk forgets where he is and what he is doing.

Embarrassed, Shulk's cheeks turn the shade of risqué scarlet. He grabs the knob to the door and blinks. The smell brought him to the... the Oval Office. Well then. Shulk inhales deeply, his chest swelling with a deep breath. He hates this part of the job. Why couldn't he go back to grabbing a gun and shooting insurgents and radicals out in the dusty desert of Arizona or wading through Vineyard Country of California to get completely wasted away by the tangible hands of Chardon? The colonel straightens his jacket, clenches the cuffs of his jacket once for good luck, and knocks.

 _Knock, knock._ The few moments of bated breathing between knocks is an eternity in his heart, and Shulk has half the insane mind to turn on his heel and flee for the hills. No one will take him seriously after he bails in such a ridiculous manner, but this is in the end something he does not care about. He needs to escape the world with his life, leave the dignity behind him. " _The world is mean,_ " Shulk deduces one night, a full bottle of bourbon stirring in his belly while he rants to cohorts like Marth Lowell and Ike Forgenson on the job. " _It's taken so much from me, and the only thing I really want it to take from me is my life, but of course it can't do that? Can it? Of course not._ "

"It's open, colonel," a voice says from the other side of the door, and now there's no turning back.

Shulk's hand eclipses the door knob and turns it slowly, ever so slowly like a snail sliding down a rusty drain pipe. He enters the room of the president, immediately shutting the door behind him. The noise echoes around the room, similar to that of an abandoned concert hall where the paintings fade and the carpet is peeling away from the floor like a Band-Aid off flesh. Outside of his comfort zone, the colonel still has yet to learn how to act like a normal person deep down. If he's with someone he trusts and or likes, things go well and he is like everyone else you see during the day. Your neighbor, the grocery store manager, even the backstreet farmer with four wives who are all his sisters. Madame President Corrin Etch is neither someone he trusts, nor someone he even remotely tolerates, so that throws all of this out the window.

The chair is turned to the back of him, and Shulk swallows an ounce of fear. It turns - the chair that is - and sitting primly in the main spot of the entire country is the very witch herself, deemed by the blonde colonel in his own words. President Corrin Etch smiles at him as if he's an old friend that she used to play rugby with on the weekends, and instead not the entire representative of the entire Syrenet project who has to explain for the bemoaning failures coming down on the establishment over the past couple of weeks.

"You're early by ten minutes, commander. I hate that you're late. Why are you late?" Corrin says first, not even muttering an 'hello' or 'how are you?'.

"For how long you've known me, Madame President, then you'd remember I absolutely despise the metro system. The quicker I get on and off of it, the more time I get to froth over what I'm going to say to you. It's never enough time, but..." Shulk replies back with a snarky tone, walking up to the desk, his left hand lacing the back of the chair situated in front of the desk.

She leans back, crossing her legs, showing finely tanned legs and swathe black stilettos with heels seven inches thin and as sharp as a needle. "Your tiredness is well noted, _Shulk,_ " Corrin resorts to using his official name as she's got the power in this situation to pull and play with the strings as she does joyfully. She eyes the ring on his finger. "You got married the last time we saw each other?"

He closes his eyes, and _dammit,_ he knew she'd do this to him. This question would come up in some way, shape or form, and here it is, not even a darn minute into their conversation. Shulk bites back tears by chomping down on his cheek, screaming inwardly as the taste of lucid copper fills his mouth. "It's Fiora and I's wedding ring, Madame President."

"Oh! Fiora!" Corrin claps her hands together happily, jubilant as ever, sitting up, face bright. "How is she? I haven't talked to her in so long."

"She's dead," Shulk deadpans back at her, sitting down in the chair. This is the sixth time he's done this to her, wringing Corrin Etch through all the heartache of reliving those two words. Fiora Roberts, Shulk's wife of fifteen years is dead as a doornail somewhere, as he's forgotten where her body is stored and has no need to want to remember where it is laid. "She died three years ago, remember? In Detroit, on one of our missions."

The president locks her jaw. "I forgot... didn't I?"

"You did," he responds, looking down at the floor. He cannot stare at her in the face. " _It's your fault she's dead, Corrin,"_ he wants to yell at her, but instead, he says it in his head. It's a constant in his life, even though Shulk does not have all the details.

Corrin stands up from her chair, and that's when he can get a good look at her for the first time in a long time. Her stylish curly wave of snowstorm hair rests at shoulder length, piercing salmon eyes frowning at the revelation. The president, dang good for forty-two, sits at the corner of her desk, gaze at the wall, not looking at Shulk. "You know why I called you in today, right?" She wants to move past the fact that she mentioned his dead wife and knows that he'll do nothing to try and transgress what just transpired as Shulk Roberts is a coward on the subject matters which are sore for him. Corrin Etch shall play him like a fiddle.

"With all the news coverage, I'd find it nearly impossible."

"Good," she says at length, not cold, yet not pleased. "Ninety-six senators have been ringing up my administration for the past four weeks, let alone the fact that Ike and Marth have returned worse for wear. Seeing them like that was... not pleasant."

"It's hard for everyone down at Syrenet."

She nods with reasonable measure. "I assume you got the notice on the page yesterday."

"Yeah. We all did," Shulk was referring to the Syrenet server where all members of the organization got information where those who could not attend briefings would be not left in the dark. A new recruit is coming to join the program, help be a military man and get the ball rolling in places around the country. Who this mysterious individual is exactly would remain just that, a mystery, until his arrival in D.C two days from now. Shulk cannot recall the last time someone new joined Syrenet, with all the negative press coverage. "With the losses inflicted on Syrenet in Oklahoma, getting the notification was more than welcoming."

"I believe he's assigned to your squad, commander," Corrin snaps her icy gaze at him, causing Shulk to jump in his chair. "Alpha Squad, and he's going to be your right-hand man."

"I have Lucas for that," the blonde argues. "He's more than capable of being there for me than someone in actual human flesh who can die on me."

"Lucas is a voice inside your head, a figment of virtual reality. Do not compare the AI Unit inside your Syrenet suit to an actual person, Shulk. You know better," she chides. "I didn't agree to the creation of AI Units for the Syrenet program so they can become your best friends. They're tools. Simply leave it at that."

"You know I can't," Shulk says, but he's afraid to continue. If he continues, he very well may be handed his pink slip. "Who's the recruit?"

Shulk's blood runs icy cold as the president goes back to her chair, grabbing a folder in the far corner. He observes her distantly, noting the rhythmic drumming she made with her fingers, or the occasional _click-pop_ of her tongue. "His file is actually right here," she says. Corrin looks up, deciding to jump topics. "Turns out my husband will be in town over the next week. He wants to have dinner with Robin and most of the administration, but he also requested you be there."

The colonel finds this to be surprising. It is no surprise to anyone that whenever something went wrong with Syrenet, the grandiose husband of president Corrin Etch, senator of New York, Cloud Gladwell, would be in D.C to address every detail and action of his spouse like an overbearing protective mother to their ten year-old. When Corrin became president, her husband who is already in the Senate at the time had no desire to drop his day-time job to become First Gentleman or somesuch. Shulk still gets baffled on occasion seeing Corrin and Cloud together for photos as the two have such contrasting personalities that marriage is an impossibility that by a sheer chance of luck became reality.

"He did that?"

"A request," Corrin nods, lips turned upwards in a devilish smirk. "I personally don't know why my husband wants _you_ there, you would have been invited anyways, but that answer will have to wait till next week when he's here," she stands up, mind spiraling into a rant. "That reminds me, actually. Cloud was the only one of the four senators who didn't call or text me about the Oklahoma City riot. Perhaps it's because it'll be addressed why he wasn't worried, but in hindsight, Shulk, it makes me laugh. I have all of these statesmen and stateswomen who are worried sick out of their minds that this rioting thing against the Syrenet project has gone too far and I should just abandon the project. Ninety-six opinions all said that. I responded back by laughing into my cell phone. The audacity to even suggest I close the branch. Just because a few people have little faith in the message and what they ' _think_ ' may happen, is not reason to suddenly scrap a ten year, established branch, from simply closing its doors. Syrenet is not meant to be a way of tightening control, but it is a way to keep this country afloat. Another... safety precaution if you will. In the last fifty years of our country, we've had twelve presidents, and I'm the only one to get a second term. _I'm_ the only one to have a near perfect approval rate of all of my policies, and these senators think they can question my plans? Hello? It's my program that got you elected in the first place! _My_ administration. The entire country loves me, yet there's backlog... it puzzles me. How can you love everything I do except for one thing, yet still vote for me? Our country is... actually, I _don't_ know what our country is." The president finishes her rant, going to the window.

Shulk sits in silence in his chair. His mind mulls over all of the details absorbed. Ten years ago, a budding little scientist by the name of Rock Scott develops this suit of armor with the ability to have a robot speak to you. Mobile, fully functional, and so he sells the idea to the United States government under the brand name of Sir Network, as the kid was British. That, underneath the helm of the Etch administration turned it into Syrenet, created more and more technological breakthroughs, and voila there came to be the existence of Syrenet as everyone knew, yet not fully loved.

"So... this is what you wanted me to travel from home for? To hear you rant, Madame President?" Shulk says decidedly after a few moments of awkward silence. Actually, his retort falls short since he lives in D.C inside the Syrenet headquarters, which is not even halfway across the city.

Corrin's nostrils flare with anger, but her smile is as sweet and delectable as candy. "In short, yes. That is it. I've got to get all of these senators off my back and I don't think a simple notecard or TV speech will change their minds. I want to use that recruit of yours, and I want to use him well."

Shulk can feel the bristling, carnal energy off of his skin as he sits up. "What did you have in mind?"

Her gaze is sharp, daring, bold, and he's drowning in the senses of all of it. "Have you ever broke a glass ceiling, colonel?"

"Not... not that I recall." Shulk furrows his eyebrows together, not quite getting the gist of what she meant. Figuratively, he heard the expression before. But, with Madame President, she could mean metaphors into the literal thing, it is the way her mind worked.

Corrin places her hands on her desk, leans forward, and smirks. "Well then, get ready. We're breaking one."

Shulk closes his eyes, counting to ten. Once again, no turning back. The blonde opens them, and grins back. Perhaps this could be good. "All right. What is it we're going to do?"

And from then on, Syrenet is to shape the course of the entire country, for better _or_ worse.

* * *

 ***sigh* There we are readers, Chapter #2: Glass Ceilings of Syrenet. I had a blast writing this chapter, as there's so much ambiguity and unanswered doors to be had that I am trying to create a contrived web of lies, suspense and foreign entanglements. Hopefully it's working. So, we have been introduced to a few more characters. Shulk Roberts is the main man of Syrenet, the commander of Alpha Squad (so, like the highest ranking official in the army). Corrin Etch is the president of the United States of America for this piece, and then we have the elusively known Cloud Roberts, a New York senator who seems to be invested in this whole Syrenet project. I did mention Lucas, but we'll get to him sooner than later. Who do you all think is this new recruit they mentioned? Hint, he's going to be our main character of Syrenet, with good reason. Thank you all so much for reading! I know I was two days or so behind on the update, but I'm gonna make sure to have the next one be speedy quick, probably a Friday or Saturday post. Hope to see you all for Chapter #3: New Kid on the Block. Please review and let me know what you thought of this chapter, and especially Shulk, wherein lies a backstory I am stoked to explore. Have an amazing rest of your Christmas day, and thanks for being amazing readers. Love you all! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	3. Chapter 3: New Kid on the Block

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, #3: New Kid on the Block. Man, ever since I started planning this piece, this has been the first of the opening ten chapters I have been most excited and thrilled to write, despite the fact that nearly everything in all of my stories makes me excited and causes me to want to write after all, but I digress. Last time, we were introduced to Shulk Roberts, captain of Alpha Squad for Syrenet, and our president of the United States, Corrin Etch who is something else, am I right? Today... it's a doozy and here I am at 11 PM at night sitting down to type this thing as I cannot hold on a single minute. I am (or was) planning for a Saturday update... as I really need to get back to Icarus Chronicle and finish that story up, but this one is going to start blinding me. Anyways, review replies!**

 **SeththeGreat- I had sent you a PM saying thank you, especially with how much your review meant to me! Yeah... I have always had a hard time writing in past tense, despite it being the main style I write in as present tense is often not seen, but I feel more comfortable with it anyways. I am trying to be as ambiguous about everything as possible, but this story isn't a mystery genre so I gotta draw the line in the sand at some point. I sincerely cherish the words in your review and I hope to continue to impress you from here on out.**

 **Ike4ever- You say bro a lot... just a note, lol. It's cool. Anyways... yeah our main characters aren't the happiest bunch, but I still love em! Corrin is a snake, but she's a sweet snake, if one were to ever exist. Yeah, the Syrenet suits are almost like Iron Man suits with a tiny AI Unit (Jarvis, almost), in the back of your head, but you don't get to jetpack and fire lasers and be invincible like Tony Stark. Thank you very much for the compliment. People say my descriptions are above the run-of-the-mill, but I still think there are far better out there to enjoy. Glad you're liking it so far!**

 **Maxcy Leland- Corrin's going to be doing that very thing a lot. Have you heard the one where someone screams, "Just drop dead!" Yeah, expect it. Interesting insight you have on her character, but I'm not going to say if you're right or not. Colonel should be capitalized? I looked up some rules on that and I've found several answers, so I was using the same way of general, or an employment such as teacher. Cloud and Corrin have different last names for reasons you'll learn. And yep, rugby. I have to be _somewhat_ funny with this story.**

 **Thanks for those who reviewed, and now it's time for Chapter #3: New Kid on the Block. Enjoy!**

* * *

 _For every new person I meet, I make a mental snapshot of who they are. To try and comprehend just how many people one runs into in a day is astounding, and that sometimes even the simple nod of your head to acknowledge their existence can make their day is something that'll always make me smile even when I'm withering away in a rocking chair someday._

* * *

He has no idea how he managed to be standing in front of the Syrenet building, but the directions on his phone had indeed pointed him to the right direction. Roy Arcadia looks up from the cellular device, squinting as the sun's harsh rays blinded his clear view of the massive technological structure in front of him. The hustle and bustle of Washington D.C behind him does little to help quell the unrelenting churn of butterflies in his stomach. He runs a hand through his lava brick hair, his gleaming obsidian eyes staring out into the azure sky.

Roy checks the phone again, and his directions are legitimate. He's where he needs to be. The letter says so, the phone call says so... it's a go. The government wouldn't try to pull the wool over his eyes, would they? Standing before him, doused in a halcyon glow, is the main headquarters of Syrenet. A fifteen story building that rises over the memorials on the other side of the lake, and in a digital moving sign with electric blue letters, Roy gawks at its impressiveness, caught off guard. He had heard a lot about its metal sheen and scientific genius in the academy, but to see it up close is something else entirely. It should be added into one of modern seven wonders of the world. The Great Eight. It _does_ have a ring to it. He takes a picture for safekeeping, and digs into his pocket for the letter.

Bestowed to him exactly one week prior, it had read,

 _Dear Mr. Arcadia,_

 _Allow me to formally introduce myself as the president of the United States, Corrin Etch. While you getting this may come to you as a surprise, I am here to say that this is not a ruse, scheme, or anything otherwise. If you have paid attention to the news in the past few years, the government under my administration has created a branch called Syrenet, a technological army and resource for advancements in the world. Mr. Arcadia, or Roy, if you prefer to be called by your first name, have been selected to join this program and project for the betterment of your career and for the country. You were one of the top students in your graduating class in high school, university, and even in the FBI academy. In exactly one week, you are requested to come to Syrenet headquarters in D.C and be introduced to the staff and learn the ropes of how the program works. Once all of the preliminary stuff is taken care of, you get the option of whether or not you'd like to join or decline in doing so. If you are to decline, the existence of you being accepted into Syrenet must never be revealed to anyone as this is top secret information. However, if you wish to become a member here, then the more the merrier. There is an assignment that has been developed for Syrenet that has created alarm here in D.C. Your mission will be this undertaking as a member of Syrenet. I, personally, will not be able to attend this meeting and introduction, so this will do for now. I hope you have an amazing time while you're there, and make sure you think long and hard about what is being presented to you. This opportunity, if declined, will not come around the bend again for you. Have a good day, Mr. Arcadia._

 _~ Sincerely, the president of the United States, Corrin Etch._

His heart hammers in his chest like a snare drum as he inches forward against the stone ground. Roy has never, in the twenty-six years that he's been alive, done something like this. Not once, as a teen, did he ever dream of joining the FBI, but only two months ago he had graduated and was allowed to become an officer. Never did Roy fathom that he would get a personal request from the president of the United States to join a branch of unprecedented power and prestige. Needless to say, Roy Arcadia was a teensy bit nervous, if that is even allowed.

" _Of course not,_ " he thinks to himself dismissively. " _Who are you kidding with that?_ "

Roy's hands tug on the door handle into the headquarters, and he passes over the threshold into Syrenet's main building. An instant gust of cold hits his skin and goose bumps erupt all over his exposed arms. He shivers, hugging his sides tight as he continues to walk in. His tennis shoes make ghastly loud echoes on the tile which resonate and reflect off the granite and marble chiseled walls. On the walls were Latin and English phrases in a fancy bronze color, written fancily in some form of archaic manuscript. He cranes forward to try and read one, but is unable to due to the sun's glare.

In the center of the lobby is a desk, and a blonde haired woman sitting at it. He walks over, careful not to have his sneakers squeak against the tile. The woman's back is turned to him as she's typing at a computer. Roy clears his throat awkwardly, teetering back on his heels. She pauses, turns around in the chair, and her face immediately brightens. The woman is dressed in a tight pink blouse, her hair swooped down like an 'M' on the sides of her face. He catches the name tag and it reads _Peach._ His nose wrinkles. Who names their child after a fruit?

"Hello. How are you today?" Peach asks sweetly, folding her arms over one another.

"I'm good," Roy nods, smiling. Seemed to be going well so far.

"What can I help you with?"

He shows her the crumpled letter in his hand, and Peach claps giddily, throwing Roy off kilter for a moment as he didn't expect a grown woman to be prancing around the office space like a toddler. "Oh! You're Roy Arcadia, aren't you?" the redhead nods dutifully at the question. "I'll let Shulk know you're here. He's the one who'll be guiding you around on this tour. All you have to do is go to the elevators on my right, and go to basement floor three, or BF3. Okay?"

"Okay?"

"Good. I hope you enjoy your stay." Peach shakes his hand, and he goes off.

" _Enjoy my stay?"_ Roy frowns to himself, going over the statement in his head. " _What is this? Some sort of hotel? Am I being duped here?_ "

The redhead steps into the elevator, and lets the doors close around him. The elevator is drowned out in greyscale, gray lights hanging in the corners, an iodine colored air vent jutting out just slightly to give Roy a mild case of OCD. He centers himself on the elevator's paneling, and presses the BF3 button, which to his surprise does not highlight a grey color, but a sharp and swathe olive green. The slate cube groans and he tenses, fearing it may drop him to a dimension of lord knows where, but his nerves are quickly stilled as the elevator begins to change floors rather swiftly. It is almost as if the gears were moving like melted butter on a pan. Today is a day when Roy makes metaphors. Why? No rhyme or reason.

Roy's hands begin to shake, and that's the first time he realizes he's nervous. It's perhaps one of the few times he has ever been nervous in his young life. Asking the popular queen of his highschool, Midna Veracruz out to prom? No deal, he got rejected and punch poured on his head, but Roy left high school that day feeling like a champ. However, finding out that she's married to scumbag and goes by the name Midna 'Nye' is enough to hurt him...

Or, when Roy goes skydiving for his twenty-first birthday? He is a kamikaze, jumping out of the plane the moment he is given permission to so, using a Go-Pro to film himself smiling the whole time. Getting to meet your potential new boss with all of his shiny Syrenet toys? Now, that is scary.

He closes his eyes and embraces the sounds of the building. In his pierced together darkness, his father's voice still echoes out. Eliwood Arcadia, a weathering man in his sixties with chapped lips and leathery skin, placing his forehead against Roy's, sobbing, and whispering over and over again, _Be safe Roy. Just be safe. Remember who you are, remember who we are. Never lose sight of that._ Roy's confused as to why his dad would be so overcome emotionally to tell him that, and he isn't quite sure whether or not the patriarch of his family had been smoking before he embarked off to D.C for training, but so be it. He's been safe since day one. Least that promise would never die, the one for Eliwood.

The elevator stops at BF3, and the doors slide open for Roy to be met by another freezing gust of air. "Gah!" he cries out, rubbing his arms. "They really need to raise the temperature. It's like, mid April and they're keeping it like an icebox in here..." Roy mutters to himself, stepping out of the elevator. It dropped him into a room, with a door that is locked as he tried to open it. The entire room, unlike the elevator which had been drowning in silver, is drowning in black. From the couch and bench situated on opposite sides of the room to the water fountain and wall paint, Roy feels as if he transported to one of the levels of hell.

"Okay..." he says, his shoes making even louder echoes. "This transformed from totally awesome to totally freaking me out."

He swivels on his heel to see the elevator doors close and the only company he has in the room is gone. Roy is unsure exactly what to do, but is luckily saved by the jingling of someone trying to unlock the door on the other side. He jumps a mile high, actually vaulting so high into the air that he crashes into the ceiling. Pain spreads all over his skull as he swears, rubbing his skull. The door opens and Roy's legs nearly give out underneath him as he's caught off guard.

Standing in front of him, one eyebrow raised, is a blonde man, arms crossed over his chest, a set of keys dangling from his pocket. "Uh..."

Roy blushes immensely, immediately embarrassed. "I'm _so_ sorry! I just got scared is all."

"Are you Roy?" the man asks.

"Yes," he says. "Sir..." Roy then adds, unsure of whether or not saying a proper greeting is disrespectful or not.

The blonde offers his hand which the redhead gallantly takes up the offer and shakes vigorously. "I'm Shulk, Shulk Roberts. Glad to meet you, kiddo," he retracts from the handshake, feeling limp from the intense greeting. "Sorry to drag you into the basement levels, all the upper floors are more the economic side of Syrenet and stuff. Down here is the cooler side," Shulk also gets a quick case of the shivers. "Man, is it cold in here or is it just me?"

"It's cold in here."

"Come on then, let me get you to someplace warmer. There aren't that many actually stationed in the building over the next couple of weeks, so you're in luck. Introductions can be swift and brief, like they're meant to be," Shulk guides Roy by the shoulder, taking him through the doorway which leads to a hallway. He drops his arm from Roy's back and puts his hands in his pocket. "Syrenet knows you were arriving, as we all got an invoice a few days ago about it. It's safe to say you look different from the profile picture given in your file."

"What do you mean?" Roy frowns.

"Skinnier."

The redhead blushes. "I'm- I'm not a string bean!"

Shulk laughs heartily, causing Roy to flinch. Goodness, the redhead is skittish. "I'm just messing with you," the two stop at a keypad and he types a series of numbers into the keypad. A feminine voice greets them, and the door slides back allowing the two men to enter the room. Roy gawks at the sheer size of the place he stepped into, high rise ceilings with an elaborate system of pipes, tables spread out with blueprints, data sheets, technological parts, a few round tables full of food, and in the back, shooting ranges, dummies, and other fighting gear. Another door with a keypad is located in the far back right, but to the extent of what Roy saw, that had been it. Shulk walks further into the room, throwing his keys on one of the tables. "This, although it doesn't look like much, is our regular room of... well, everything. A cheap gym, a cheap cafeteria, and a laboratory all thrown together because we could. It's dingy because people hardly stay for more than a couple of days at a time, and when we are here, I bet you that none of us Syrenet workers are cramped up in some stupid facility."

"Sleeping of any kind?" Roy asks, looking around, pausing to glance at one of the blueprints on the table.

"Down the hall, but it's only like, four beds. Unless you don't mind sharing, sleep on the floor," Shulk says. He goes to one of the front tables, and Roy follows. "I'm quite unsure of what to do with you, as I've never, _ever_ been in charge of overseeing a new recruit to the program. Usually it's President Etch who does that, but she can't make it, and I have no idea where Ike is so he's no help to me," Roy has no idea who Ike is, but he suspects he'll find out soon enough. Instead of asking a question and burying himself into a hole, he stays quiet. "I was instructed, though, to ask if this is something you want to do. To become a part of Syrenet or not. Because, if you only showed up to see the building and technology but have no interest in becoming one of us, I suggest you leave and not waste anymore of my time. It'd save me a lot of trouble."

Roy bites on his cheek. It's do or die. "I've been thinking about this for a long time... and, I'm definitely want to be a member of Syrenet. No question."

Shulk claps his hands together, glad to get over the hump of that one and out of the way by the evident sagging of his shoulders like pressure had been released from then. "Exactly what I want to hear. Good, then. I guess this is almost like a job interview, except you actually have the job and... I'm just wasting time," he rants, rummaging underneath the desk for something. Roy gets hit with a strong whiff of the smell of copper, almost gagging. Where is that odor coming from? Shulk? Roy's eyes widen at the prospect. He didn't really want to find out. "Do you have any idea what Syrenet might actually be?"

He racks his brain, trying to find an answer. From what he's seen on TV, not many good things. From what people around him at the Bureau would say, also not something he wished to share. But, being the optimistic man that Roy Arcadia is, he pushed all that negativity out and decided to focus on the positives, which meant he'd make up his own answers for himself as he went along. "N- not really."

"Then allow me to tell you everything there is to know," Roy's face falls, and Shulk immediately stutters. "I'm kidding! Kidding, just kidding!" It turns out that while he had been rummaging underneath the desk, he had grabbed a fancy type of iPad. "Syrenet, Mr. Arcadia, is an organization that is almost like a branch of the military, yet we deal with science and technological improvements. Each member of Syrenet has a special suit that is kind of like armor which has a tiny programming inside called an AI Unit. They are the little voice in your head that is omniscient of the Internet and is your eyes in the sky. Over the past couple of months, President Corrin has been instructing us to make little bands of Syrenet stores and facilities around the country to help produce more technological things. As you have seen on the news, that's not been the easiest mission."

"Oklahoma City," Roy gives an example and Shulk nods, the blonde's eyes darkening immediately at the mentioning of the tragic event. The redhead shudders at the contemptuous look. Something was telling him that bringing up tragedy like that would not be good from here on out. Roy also catches that Shulk is wearing a wedding ring, but it looks partially burned, but decides not to comment.

Shulk cracks his knuckles. "The branch here is different from what the others are intended to be. Here, in D.C, Syrenet is like a backup military force. We're given squadrons and missions to carry out, like FBI. It's dangerous work, even with a metal suit that does protect you from most things. To make it easy on us and the White House, there are twenty-six squads for Syrenet, twenty-six groups who can do our government's 'bidding'," he makes air quotes around the word for emphasis, smirking. "I am Shulk Roberts, captain or leader or whatever you want to call it of Alpha Squad, the very first letter in the alphabet... all that good stuff. I get the ragtag group of people, mostly assigned at random. I'm often a one man army. Getting the leftovers can either be an insult or a compliment if you think about it," Shulk ganders, shrugging his shoulders lamely. "Either you're so darn good they can't fit you anywhere, or you're so sucky at it that you don't fit anywhere because of it. Pick it how you may. You, Mr. Arcadia, were assigned to my squad, so now we're a two man team."

Roy isn't quite sure how to take this information. Cry? Laugh? Jump in the air and wave your hands like you just don't care? He also isn't quite too keen on having the blonde be his 'boss' or something like that. Shulk is far too zany and by the looks of it, deranged for his tastes. All Roy can do is nod and hope Shulk doesn't quite catch the tone of his voice. "Cool."

"The squads are all situated around the country doing god knows what, but it isn't my job to know what they're doing anyways-"

"Can we go back a few minutes here?" Roy interrupts, then wishing he hadn't as Shulk flashes him perhaps the most vicious glare he's ever seen, one so sharp and brutish that it causes the chills and shudders to evolve into downright shaking.

Shulk's jaw locks evidently. "About what?"

"AI Units."

The man's face brightens, and Roy would have never thought that just a few moments ago, mere seconds rather, he had been upset and ticked off. Huh. Shulk gets up from the desk and goes to the far wall by one of the mini fridges in the room. Roy watches with peculiar fascination as Shulk grabs a metal disk off the counter and walks back to him. "There's someone I'd like you to meet!"

The redhead juts his chin at the metal device. "In there?"

"Yep! Roy, I'm pleased to introduce my AI Unit, Lucas." Shulk says, placing the metal disk on the desk and clicking the black button in the middle of it. Once Shulk presses it, the button slid back into the disk, which flattened out. A hazy blue light covers the disk and right in front of Roy's eyes which are wide in disbelief, a technological form appears in front of him, full color, too.

The AI Unit, Lucas, as Shulk calls it, is only standing at about a foot tall off the disk, meaning Roy had to lean in to view him properly. Clearly a boy, Lucas is dressed in a bright halcyon and cardinal striped shirt, wearing jeans, with a crop of lemonade hair frisked upwards like an ice cream cone. Lucas, who couldn't have appeared to be older than maybe eleven, yawned. "What is it Shulk? I was having a nice dream about-" Lucas blinks, realizing he and his Syrenet companion weren't the only ones in the room. "Who's this?"

" _This_ , is Roy Arcadia, our new Syrenet recruit. Roy, this is Lucas Dio, my AI unit," Shulk introduces the two of them.

Lucas's irritated, pale face replaces itself with that of a huge grin, and the kid waves back and forth like a maniac. "Hi! Nice to meet ya, mister! I'm Lucas!"

"Roy," the redhead nodded back. "Shulk... what exactly is he?"

"I'm a piece of programming, Mr. Arcadia," Lucas answers for the older male, sitting down in his hologram. "A file created by a technician and stored onto this disk. I was programmed to be an eleven year-old boy, blonde, blue eyes, smart, and resourceful. I am the unit inside Mr. Roberts's suit while he fights, helping him through all these troubles."

"It blows my mind to see this..." Roy says, examining Lucas over with his eyes. "Does every suit have one?"

"Every suit," Shulk nods. "And let me answer a question if it's directed at me, please Lucas," he says to his AI unit who nods. He looks back at Roy. "You'll have one too, when Pit lets you pick one out. Pit is the technician who has single-handedly developed all of the suits and all of the units, not very much of a fighter. He's somewhere in the building, and you'll meet him soon," the blonde rubs his chin. "Though it may sound boring and perhaps completely unrealistic, Lucas has an entire digital world as his playground. I turn off the sensor and he goes back into his own little paradise that none of us can see or interact with unless he decides to show it to you. Lucas is-"

"I'm a giver!" the boy cries happily. "I love showing you what I have. There's my digital coin collection, my digital garden, my digital library on William Shakespeare... there's-"

"Hold up!" Roy interrupts again. "William Shakespeare? If he's ten, shouldn't that be a digital comic book collection or..."

"Don't try to think about it for too long, Roy. Lucas was programmed as a kid, yes, with a personality like one, but has adult tastes. After all, he's a robot in some aspects, so I can imagine there isn't much out there he cannot understand or enjoy."

"Do you want me to sing to you in Spanish, Mr. Arcadia?"

"I'm good, thank you..." the redhead quickly downs that idea.

Shulk rolls his eyes at Lucas's playfulness. "Anyways... that brings me to my next point. You agreed to be a Syrenet member, so President Corrin wanted me to give you this," he reaches behind the desk again and hands Roy a folder. Lucas rocks back and forth on his heels, already reading what it contained from behind the folder, waiting for the reaction. "It's a mission for you."

Roy flips it open, heart racing. " _Day one and they're already throwing me to the wolves? What gives? Oh, well. I guess I can do whatever it is they want me to do..."_ he thinks. Inside the folder is a data page, chock full of writing and pictures. A single face appeared on an index card paper clipped to the folder. A man with maple blonde hair, stunning diamond eyes, all decked out in green, and underneath the picture a name of _Link Collins_. "Who's he?" Roy questions, looking up from the folder.

The leader of Alpha Squad had been distracted by Lucas's antics, the blonde AI Unit who had been currently running around his tiny visible circle jumping and doing kicks like a crazed kid on sugar. Which he probably is, if Roy takes a second to ponder the possibility. Shulk blinks momentarily, then catches back on track. "Link Collins is an arms dealer, a weapons builder. President Corrin has had him on our payroll for the past five years, but in the past month there have been some oddities surrounding his entire operation. Four of his manufactures have been reporting missing merchandise... rocket launchers, some sniper rifles, things of that nature. However, Link has not given _us_ a statement on his losses. The rebels in Oklahoma City that attacked us were all using those same weapons that have gone missing from the Midwestern states. No attacks have been reported at any of the sites either, so President Corrin-"

"She feels that he's now selling the weapons he would be giving us to them. He'd be betraying us an aiding a terror effort, then?" Roy finishes for him.

"Exactly!" Lucas pumps a tiny, digital fist. Shulk sighs.

"I'm going to turn you off if you can't normal for once, kiddo," he says, then returns to the redhead. "What Lucas reiterated, I suppose. While it may seem sudden, you were the best of the best in your graduating year like the letter said, and President Corrin feels it is necessary we get all operatives out and functioning. Link Collins is situated in Boston right now, and that's where your mission will be. I don't know too much else about it other than the fact that I am not leading you in this work. The head director of the FBI, Snake Karlo, is in charge, which Corrin deemed was the best. You want someone who can get infiltrate enemy lines with help, not get seen or need to kill and get out? Snake's your guy."

"Great!" Roy nods, although his mind was on full panic mode as everything felt to be coming at him just way too fast, and he was unsure exactly of how to handle it. "Am I going to get a suit, or what's the deal-"

Turns out he didn't have to wait very long at all for his wish to come true. Some voices were heard back by the gym section, Shulk's lip curling up into a smirk. Two men appeared from behind the row of punching bags, one with striking cobalt hair, the other a brunette. Shulk steps in front of Roy, while Lucas sits on his disk. "Didn't you know that we had a recruit coming in today and you decide to teach Pit how to spar?"

"Excuse me, princess," the cobalt haired man retorted, taking the last swig of the water bottle in his hand before crushing it and throwing it in the garbage can. "The guy needs to learn how to fight back in case rebels storm the castle or something."

"Highly unlikely, Ike," Shulk rolls his eyes, turning to Roy. "Roy, this is Ike Forgenson, commander of Charlie Squad. He's exactly two ranks beneath me in terms of superiority, so he's _also_ your boss."

Ike shakes Roy's hand firmly, and the redhead winces at the other man's strong grip. He's almost envious of the guy's body, easily towering over six feet with bulging muscles underneath the swamped and soaked sweaty t-shirt. A red headband is tied around Ike's forehead, now dark black from the sweat. "I'm Ike. Pleased to meet you, Roy." Roy notices that his right arm is wrapped up in a sling, all bandaged up.

"What happened to you?" he asks, and then he almost wishes he hadn't.

"He was in Oklahoma City when the rebels attacked," the other guy, a far skinnier and leaner man than Ike says, at the main console, greeting Lucas with a wave. "He and another commander named Marth were some of the only ones to survive, and the only injury left that Ike has is the broken shoulder," an extended hand after the sentence. "I'm Pit, Pit Icarus. Pleasure." Pit's head of mahogany hair is only slightly dampened in the front, not all too messy. When he turned, Roy got an eyeful of white, pallid feathery wings, and then everything made no sense after that.

"Don't mind those," Ike instructs, also saying hello to Lucas. "Pit has been wearing those things since like four Halloweens ago. He dressed up like an angel, or Cupid or something stupid and he liked them so much that he kept him on."

"He's not lying," Pit chuckles to himself.

"Pit is the technician who created all of these suits and AI units you see," Shulk comments. "He's very good at what he does."

"I second that!" Lucas cheers. "I mean, just look how I turned out."

"Well someone is a little vain today," Ike grumbles. "Did you catch Roy here up to speed on Boston?"

"With all that I could tell him from the folder, yeah."

Pit straightens himself from the desk of clutter he had stopped at, a keycard in his hand. "Hey, Roy, come here for a moment. Since you'll be in Boston in like three days, I got to give you a Syrenet suit. There's about six currently left unused or I can stay up all day and all night for the next two days to create your own custom one with an AI unit that you handpicked."

"I'll browse at the old ones..." Roy stutters, following Pit.

The brunette stops at the keycard and swipes it, letting Roy go first into the new hallway. Ike watches the two leave, and then directs himself to Shulk who is tapping away incessantly at the iPad. A beer replaces the crushed bottle of water, and the navy haired man downs it in a few satisfying gulps, before tossing the can behind him, not looking at where he put it.

"Ike, please go and throw the can away," Shulk does not bother to look up from the iPad. "Just because you're wounded is not an excuse to not act like a decent human being and pick up your garbage."

"Jeez," he mutters, getting the can. "Who peed in your cornflakes today?"

Lucas's face grimaces into one of disgust. "That sounds disgusting."

"It's an expression, Lucas," Shulk sighs, rubbing his forehead in contentment.

"The new guy seems kind of cool, don't you think so?" Ike remarks, sitting down at one of the tables. "Like, stuck between being mystified out of your mind and downright confused. That was me too, though."

"Corrin is going to throw him into an armed landmine field."

"Is that so?"

"What makes you say that?" Lucas asks.

Shulk looks up from the iPad, blue eyes a stormy gray. "Think about it for a second, kiddo. It's a new recruit already given an assignment that sounds far worse and far more dangerous than the ones we were given when Ike and I started out. Link Collins is the kingpin of firearms and you're just going to have some greenie infiltrate a compound of his, monitor his legal activity, stay on Link's good side, _and_ not die? If that's not asking Roy to perform a miracle, I don't know what will."

Ike frowns. "Maybe you just have to give the kid more credit where it's due. You said that Snake is going to be helping him? I reckon that's a good thing."

"I don't know, Ike..." Lucas trails off.

The leader of Alpha Squad turns off the iPad, now bringing his attention back up to the two of them. "Whatever President Corrin has planned, let's just hope it doesn't kill him, okay?"

No one seconds his thought, though it is all mutually accepted under one guise.

* * *

 **Totally wasn't expecting to have another update so soon, but I just wrote this from like 10:30ish or so now and I'm posting it as my hands hurt, my back hurts, and I'm tired as heck. Oh well, that was Chapter #3: New Kid on the Block. This didn't exactly play out as I originally thought of it as time went on, but we'll get there. Longest chapter so far by a good 2k at the very least! So, what'dya think folks? Any of this sound cool? For clarification, Roy is our main character of Syrenet, Shulk is the 2nd main, Lucas is the 3rd main, and Corrin is the 4th main character. That's supposed to be the order on the summary, but they didn't give it to me, but oh well. I love Lucas's character and we'll get to see him alongside Shulk more often. What type of suit do you think Roy picked? Or who his AI unit would be? It's gonna be a male Smash character, as a hint. This chapter was also longer than I planned it to be, making this like three updates in seventy-two hours, which is completely crazy. Please review and let me know what you thought! Thanks so much to those who already do, and I can't wait to see you all again sometime sooner than later for Chapter #4: Smuggling Negotiation, where we'll meet some more characters such as Vice President Robin Wyndel, and our arms dealer Link Collins. You have an amazing day! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	4. Chapter 4: Smuggling Negotiations

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, #4: Smuggling Negotiations. Man, oh man, oh man... happy new year ladies and gentlemen! 2016 is at our backs, 2017 is ahead of us and that means it's the year before my fiction graduation. Woot, what a way to end the year on a chapter on perhaps what will be my best story I've ever written, only time will tell, hmm? Last chapter was quite longer than usual, but in that we were introduced to our real main character, Roy Arcadia, a new recruit to Syrenet, along with Lucas Dio, the AI Unit inside Shulk's suit, and a brief introduction to Pit Icarus, the main technician at Syrenet. Today we're introduced to even more characters (there's always someone new to meet around every corner so get used to it for awhile :D) I love these two characters you're about to see for reasons known, but I hope it keeps you all on the edge of your seat. Review replies coming up!**

 **CrashGuy01- Glad to see you peek your head in! More than welcome with the Syrenet crowd! Glad the same formula for Icarus Chronicle is working for you here, always happy to see a fan of my descriptions and the like. Link is not the AI Unit for Roy, that character you'll find out about later as specifically mentioned last chapter, Link is an arms dealer. And don't worry there's a plotline for these two.**

 **SeththeGreat- Hmm, I was thinking moreso the voice of Jarvis combined with Cortana, who totally skipped my mind, as I'm not the largest Halo fan out there, though it is an amazing series. Corrin is the definition of what I'd call a rose, sweet and pretty but she has thorns which she's not afraid to use, so you're actually hitting the nail on the head.**

 **Ike4ever- I'm always pumped and happy to see your reviews appear. They sound like they have so much energy while you read. I look forward to seeing them every time. Glad you found the dialogue compelling, there's a lot of it in this chapter. All my dialogue chats seem to have been helping which is good to see in the output. Heh, yeah, once I started writing the chapter a couple of days ago, I simply couldn't stop. I can't tell you whether or not you're correct on your AI unit choice, but leave it up in the air. Curious how you came to that conclusion though.**

 **Alright guys, enjoy Chapter #4: Smuggling Negotiations.**

* * *

Link Collins nods his head at the secret service guard positioned outside the closed doors into the Oval Office. The blonde man cracks his neck, cracks his knuckles, and then flashes a creepy smile at the guard who flinches, just like Link expects the man to. The rest of the world is too easy for him to play around with. A groaning sound comes from the door as it is swung open, revealing the grand and glorious bald eagle on the carpet drowned in a navy circle.

He steps into the room, slamming the door shut behind him ceremoniously with a wide swipe of his arm. The echo rings around the pallid walls, causing the woman in the chair to spin around, almost out of surprise. President Corrin Etch realizes who it is, her face of fright replacing itself with a withering scowl. "Who let you in?" she asks, venom dripping off of her words like a drop of molasses sliding off a spoon.

"Your guards," he replies with a snarky tone, clapping his hands together and waltzing up to the chair turned in front of her desk. "It seems like they're letting their _guard_ down, wouldn't you say? Allowing someone like me in this beautiful building?" Link grins, giving the Oval Office a lookover. "Although, I must say, it is in a shambled condition right now. You need me."

She winces at his distasteful pun, which she didn't even find that funny to begin with. Corrin places her hands over her desk, laced together, and smiles sweetly. "Link, do me a favor and get the hell out of here and off my property."

"Your property?" Link raises an eyebrow at her, almost mockingly. "Sounds like someone is pretentious of themselves."

"You know what I meant."

"Then press that button and get the armed guards in here," he challenges, getting right in her face, almost so close that their noses are touching, a brimming feeling of electricity and rage striking through the connected bridge of flesh. "Watch in glee as I kill them all, then, Mrs. Etch. Or... you let me at the very least talk with you, because I've never seen a lady such as yourself reject a gentleman who simply wishes to chat."

Corrin considers his terms for a moment, her right hand lifting up from the red button sticking out underneath her desk. She sits back in her chair. "I hardly believe you came to _talk_ with me, Mr. Collins."

"What? I can't be an honest man?" he feigns surprise, taking serious, _serious_ offense at the audacity of her statement. How dare she, the critter that is Corrin Etch, disrespect the paragon that is Link Collins, weapons creator and fighter extraordinaire.

She closes her eyes and counts to ten, darkness covering over the smirking expression on his face. Corrin's fists relax into palms facing downwards on the desk. "Fine. You can stay."

"Good!" Link claps his hands giddily, leaning back in his chair and propping his feet up on the desk. Her left eye begins to twitch uncontrollably, and she goes as far as to smack herself in the face so he couldn't see the irritation within her. "Man, I haven't been able to actually sit down and relax in who knows how long," he eyes her with a grin. "I mean, I don't know how your people stand it, taking the metro. All those tourists and foreigners who don't know up from down. It's a nuthouse down there. I probably didn't spend more than like five minutes underneath the ground and I was crawling at the walls to get out of there."

Corrin places a fist underneath her chin, tuning in with the ever so flawless blinking of her eyes and an upturned lip. "Is that so? Shame you didn't decide to stay down there and rot." She is reminded so heavily of Shulk, a thought that hits the back of her throat like a splash of vomit. Disgusting.

Link makes a downed face. "Hey, what's with the attitude?"

"Because you're showing up whenever you want and you're interrupting my work. I'm very busy, you know," she says pointedly.

"Oh, and what, pray tell, is occupying all of your time?" he snaps.

She looks a little dejected by this criticism and rubs her shoulder innocuously. "Cr- crossword puzzles..." Corrin stutters. " _Crossword puzzles, Corrin? Is that really the best you could've come up with in front of the most influential and powerful arms dealer in the country? Great job with that one, you idiot."_

"Crossword puzzles?" Link raises an eyebrow. "The president of the United States of freaking America is doing crossword puzzles?"

"So I have some downtime and I'm filling it with leisure..." she chews on the inside of her cheek. "I'm sure you do it too," Corrin adds, trying to save face.

"Robin sure doesn't have any downtime from what I've seen," Link says, running a finger down his cheek, rubbing some stubble from an aftershave. "You've got her running around here like crazy. Don't you have a staff for that?"

The president's eyebrows rise some on her brow at the mention of the vice president, her most trustworthy advisor. "And how would you know what Robin Wyndel is busy, Link?"

"I ran into her on the way here," he explains nonchalantly. "Very busy it seemed. She mentioned something about my next supplies shipment going to the Syrenet project," a light bulb went off in his head, evident by the brightening of his eyes. Link leans forward, dropping his feet off the desk. "I must say congratulations are in order."

"For what?" Corrin's skin is itching from being near the pest, so she gets up and goes to the window. She's dressed in a winter sweater, black and tight hugging her entire waist. "Last I checked, I dropped a few points in the poll approval rating."

Link rolls his eyes. "I'm not talking about that, Corrin. I'm talking about Syrenet! I heard you got a new recruit yesterday, someone young, snazzy, and definitely better than Shulk Roberts," he rubs his hands on his jeans. "You run that guy all over the country, and I fear that at forty his heart is going to give out from all the painkillers and stress relievers he takes from the job."

"I'm sure he appreciates your concern, and I'll give Shulk your condolences," Corrin says sharply from the window. Her back tightens. "How would you've heard about the new Syrenet recruit? I didn't announce it on TV yet, and I've asked no one in that department to say anything either."

"I had Robin tell me. She mentioned it off handedly before vanishing further into this mansion of a place you call the White House," Link answers, picking at his fingernails, looking back up at her. He breaks off, seeing the half confused, half angry face on the president. "What's wrong?"

Corrin's brain searches for answers. Why would her vice president tell Link Collins about the new Syrenet recruit unless... unless... " _You're getting way too ahead of yourself Etch, calm down. Your vice president isn't in cahoots with the man. For God's sake, are you losing it? Actually, I very well may be,"_ she thinks darkly, before swallowing. "Nothing." Corrin says. She observes Link back by the window. He's in his late twenties, handsome and strong. His maple blonde hair reaches down to about mid-neck, a sapphire earing in his left ear highlighting that side of his complexion very nicely. She notices that he's dressed in the same type of outfit he's always seen in around D.C, an olive-green hunting jacket and rugged worn boots.

Link reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cigar and a lighter. "Excuse me for a second..."

"You can't smoke in here," she interrupts him. Her nostrils flare. This parasite of a man always knows how to get on her last nerve.

"And what are you going to do, Corrin? Fine me?" he retorts. She bites down on her tongue, almost swearing. "That's what I thought," Link takes a puff on the cigar, a ring of pallid smoke leaving his lips and splattering over the light fixture above the desk. "That hits the spot," he says, holding the cigar between his middle and pointer finger on his left hand. "So, what can you tell me about the new recruit?"

"You know I can't do that," Corrin shakes her head, returning to her desk. "Confidentiality. We're at the point where even his name is up for-"

" _His_ name?" Link smiles. "Well, I do know that he's a guy now, so thank you for that."

She mentally kicks herself underneath the table. "Besides, I don't know why you'd want to know anyways, it's not like you'll be running into him on a daily basis."

He regards this with a tip of the head. "Yes, that is true," Another puff on the cigar and an exhalation that sounds like music to the president's ears. "But, I do want to know who my weapons are going to, especially if my new shipment is for their program. I'm just surprised you had someone wish to be in _the_ program after what happened in Oklahoma. I didn't take those rebels seriously, but now I think I need to up the amp just to give you all a fighting chance."

"I actually sought after this one," Corrin replies at a draw, running her hand on the desk. "I wanted to have someone new join the ranks and give the old guys some morale. Felt like it was time. Besides, one man can hardly atone for the thirty or so I lost out in Oklahoma."

"No, it can't. It can't," Link agrees. Silence envelops the Oval Office for a mere second, before he leans forward, cigar sticking out between his teeth. "Is there anything, _absolutely_ anything you can tell me about him that _won't_ compromise him to anyone? Like, seriously, what am I going to do with that information?"

" _A lot actually,_ " Corrin smirks to herself before going over everything in her head. "I did look over his entire file. Name, date of birth, age, height and weight, general stuff like that. There was more miscellaneous crap than anything else."

"So there's gotta be something."

"Well, I know his favorite type of pasta."

"Pasta?" the blonde leans his head back and laughs raucously, the joyous noise reverbing all around the White House. "Why, in heaven's name, is that on a file about your workers?"

"General things he likes," Corrin shrugs. "Look, don't be pointing fingers at me over here. I didn't design the thing."

"But, since you said you know everything about this gentleman, tell me, what _is_ his favorite type of pasta?"

Corrin does not bat an eye as she replies, "Linguini."

"I always thought that stuff was weird. But, hey, I can't do anything about that," Link takes another puff of the cigar before offering it to her. "Want a puff?"

She sighs. It is never good for a person of public image to go out on a limb and be risky like the way she's about to, but decides why the hell not? Corrin takes the cigar and hesitantly places it in her mouth. The taste is weird, bizarre, and horribly bitter. She takes a drag, before coughing her lungs out onto the table as the cigar drops to the desk. Link watches back with a grin before taking the cigar back into his own mouth and chews on it.

"Good god," Corrin coughs, placing the crook of her left elbow up to her mouth. "What is in that thing?"

"Uh... tobacco?" Link raises an eyebrow. "I take it that you aren't a smoker?"

"No, and that is definitely not helping me," she grimaces, wiping the muck off of her tongue to the floor, which collided to the carpet like a plop of feces. " _I_ do however like tequila. That stuff hits the spot."

"Great," the arms dealer intones darkly. "A drunk politician. All you'd have to be is a man and add a beer belly. You'd like perfect for the titular role of the president of the United States."

Corrin groans down into the sole of her shoes. She's gotta think of something to get the rascal out of her sight or otherwise the whole conflict could go on for ages, and ages she couldn't spend dealing with literal trash. Again, literal trash she is having a willing conversation with at that. Sometimes Corrin just wants an eagle to drop out of the sky and kill her. Maybe a gunshot wound to the head could suffice. "When's your flight?"

Link smashes the cigar into an ashtray placed conspicuously far away from Corrin's chair. If she does not smoke, then why is there an ashtray on her desk? "A few hours. It's why I stopped by, actually. I've seen the Smithsonian and all the memorials more times than I count from being here on business, so since I knew you'd be home and not stuck in a meeting or hostage crisis, I could see my favorite politician."

"I'm the only politician who tries to stand you." Corrin can almost feel the shudder coming.

"I wonder why that is..." he mulls.

"Do you need a list of reasons?"

"I'm all open for suggestions."

"God, I can't stand you."

"Exactly! Neither can I!" he grins. Link picks at his fingernails, sitting nonchalantly back into his seat. "My flight is out of Reagan, since you cared to ask, and my chauffer can get me there in minutes."

"I thought you took the metro."

"I'm not taking the metro out to the airport. Are you crazy?" Link looks at her with a half deranged look. He stands up, shaking her hand. "What if I get stuck down there and die?" he sighs, checking the clock on the wall. "Anyways, you've gotten boring, not being able to stand me and all. I might as well go terrorize pigeons by the Washington Monument. Least they'd be better than you." He doesn't even bother to say goodbye, and there Link goes, sauntering out of the Oval Office without a care in the world.

The insult stings somewhat on Corrin's conscious and so she calls back as Link turns around the corner. "Well- well at least a pigeon dresses better than you do! They don't smoke and they don't put their boots on people's desks such as myself!" She crosses her arms like an upset little school girl and leans back in her chair.

As Link bounds around the corner to race down the steps, another person she's upset with comes up the stairs herself, clutching a clipboard. Corrin's expression turns back to that of pure annoyance, seeing in the flesh Vice President Robin Wyndel. The woman is walking hurriedly towards the Oval Office, her own wave of blizzard white hair tucked back into a stout ponytail. Robin stops in the middle of the room, then closes the door.

"I was wondering when he'd leave..." she says, shaking her head, flipping the top page of the clipboard over.

Corrin locks her jaw. "Robin... why did you tell Link about our new Syrenet recruit? You _do_ realize that the guy who just got hired is the same person who'll be tailing him in Boston tomorrow?"

Robin rubs the back of her neck, frowning. "I didn't mention his name or anything of the sort! It was simply done in passing."

"Then why do you feel the need to share D.C's business with those who don't deserve finding out about it?"

"You said it yourself, Corrin. You gave me specific instructions since we became political friends that we'd share information with all those who we're working with, good or bad. Link Collins constitutes as that, and so I gave him a simple hint into what's going on. No harm done."

The president rubs her face, overcome by a sudden lapse of tiredness. Robin watches from a distance, unsure whether or not to get closer. If Robin Wyndel could be described in a few simple steps, it'd go like this... one, Robin is charismatic and kind to a T, almost like a fatal flaw. Secondly, she is motherly to those who didn't deserve it, simply as she once had children who were young kids and felt the need to nurture and protect them and lastly, the woman is the complete opposite of Corrin Etch. Robin is the voice of reason, Corrin is the sword at your throat.

Robin is no more than a one term senator from North Carolina when Corrin invited her over to her house in New York to discuss the possibility of being a running mate. Robin is, like every other person who'd ever meet the future president, sucked in by elusive charm and soft smiles that didn't mean much other than surface intent. All a great lie, of course. So the tag team duo, often coined as the White Haired Witches by their opponents due to their white hair, came to win the election with an outstanding sweep of every state in the nation besides Minnesota, akin to Ronald Reagan versus Walter Mondale back in 1984.

Corrin just hopes it means she gets blessed with the same political grace that Reagan achieves whilst in office a hundred plus years ago. However, as the silverette president looks back at the latest year, she misses that bus station and goes right off the cliff. However, her mind flits back to thinking of Robin.

She - Robin, that is - finds herself taking the backside of many policies and decisions, letting Corrin's brash nature do most of the work, and she's fine with it, as being the Vice President means you don't make that much of an impact, and then, BAM, you sweep in from behind as being an amazing debater, financial and mathematical genius, and an overall likable person. Robin Wyndel can steal that title in a New York minute.

Corrin gets up from her chair, going around to sit on the front of the desk. "If Link proves out to be innocent, I may just end him myself for the disrespect he gave this office and what it stands for." Even saying his name makes her want to retch.

"That'd hardly be good for the polls."

"Let my cabinet tell me that, Robin," she pauses, tapping a heel on the carpet. "What's new?"

"I just got off the phone with FBI director Snake Karlo," Robin answers, putting a piece of her hair behind her ear. "He's ready for Roy whenever he arrives, camp set and everything. Found out that Link is going to be hosting a dinner party at some fancy Italian restaurant by one of his complexes on the outskirts of the Boston city limits, and then... whatever happens from there on out, I suppose."

The president nods at all of this information. "Okay. Let me know if anything changes in that regard. I'm going to call Cloud. I haven't talked to him today and usually by this hour we've checked up on one another at this point."

Robin nods, going to excuse herself. The vice president bustles out of the Oval Office, stopping with one foot exiting the threshold, the other stuck on navy carpet. She places a manicured hand against the wall lining, turning back to face her superior of sorts. "Corrin?" she asks.

"What?"

"Do you think Link is innocent? That he isn't selling weapons to the rebels?"

Corrin straightens herself up. "Honest answer?" Robin shakes her head in assent. "No. I think that smug son of a you know what is guilty, and we're about to publicly execute him. _That's_ my prediction."

* * *

 _Shulk pauses on the edge of the doorstep to his house. The amicable and happy sounds of children playing in the street echo around in his brain, the sound of a puck in air hockey hitting the barriers, being rebounded into the goal, and it is more cheer than he can handle. The blonde's gaze traces over every crevice of the house, and he makes a faint smile at the cracked lines in the plaster, or the name written in black ink over the front door. ~ Shulk and Fiora Roberts, forever and ever happily married._

 _The grip on his suitcase goes lax as he sets it down on the concrete sidewalk. He brushes some of his hair out of his eye, grinning. A flower is beginning to bloom on the windowsill, a perfectly poised sunflower with radiating halcyon petals and a dark, warm mahogany center. He goes over to it and picks it from the soiled pot. "She'll love it..." he whispers to himself, clutching the flower to his chest. "She has to love it..."_

 _He returns to the porch and walks forward, feet causing the wood to groan and buckle underneath him. Shulk frowns, reaching for the doorknob which grows a face and snarls back at him. Shulk recoils. Did the knob, the doorknob just snarl at him? He tries again, and then there's an ear splitting shriek that rips through the sky. The house explodes in a supernova, the blast causing Shulk to fly back to the grass. The blonde groans as his head collides with solid dirt, and then he looks up groggily._

 _Shulk stands in panic, lucky to not be on fire, let alone injured. "Fiora!" he roars, cupping his hands around his mouth. The house is gone up in a blaze, the porch beginning to crack. Smoke billows out the windows, and he realizes that he dropped the sunflower somewhere in the grass. He seizes it and then cries out as it crumbles into a pile of dust and ash in his ever darkening hands._

 _A woman's voice breaks through the chaos and Shulk's eyes snap towards the entrance of the house where he lets out the worst sound he's ever made in his entire life. "Fiora!" he yells again. Through the smoke, the ash, and the cardinal flames, he can barely make out her smoldering body. She is crawling towards the entrance, every step causing the woman to groan. She looks up and he catches sight of her charred lemonade hair, her dangerously bright diamond eyes, and a half burned face with flesh falling off._

 _"Shulk!" she cries out, before the flames engulf her._

 _"Fiora!" Shulk screams once more, racing towards the fire. He reaches her, he reaches her, he reaches her, and then..._

 _Nothing._

"FIORA!" Shulk screams, waking up.

The metallic disk resting against his shoulder comes to life, and appearing from the frazzled darkness and blue wired mess is Lucas's frame, sad and fearful. "Shulk?" he whimpers. "What's wrong?"

The blonde sighs, rubbing the sides of his face heavily. "It's nothing, Lucas. Go back to sleep."

"What was it?"

"A nightmare..." he says reluctantly. "Just a nightmare, Lucas."

"Of?"

"Fiora..." Shulk bites down on his lip, feeling the tears coming. "Apologies for waking you up."

"Oh. I- I'm sorry," Lucas looks down, shuffling his feet awkwardly. "Do you want me to wake Lyn so she can wake Ike up? I'm sure he'll listen to whatever is troubling you..."

He smiles at his AI unit, touched by the sweetness within him. If he could ruffle his AI unit's hair, he would. "It's okay, Luke. Thanks for being considerate. Go back to sleep, okay?"

"O- okay..." the blonde boy frowns, before shutting off once more.

Shulk rubs at his face again and yawns. He shuts his eyes tight, tighter than perhaps what he's ever done before going back and trying to rest. He stirs somewhat, resting his cheek on his outstretched right arm.

In his sleep, Shulk Roberts dreams of ice crystals and earthquakes.

And one simple, fair haired maiden named Fiora.

* * *

 **DUN, DUN, DUN! Ladies and gentlemen, there we have it, Chapter #4: Smuggling Negotiations, when I just realized there weren't any negotiations to be had, but I like that title so I'm keeping it. Anyways, the latest entry to Syrenet is complete folks! When I say that I love Link Collins's character, I mean it. I. LOVE. LINK. COLLINS! I haven't written Link like this ever before, almost like a mobster who somewhat does and does not have gentlemen's manners, an attitude, and boy oh boy. Did anyone catch the two Teach Me How to Cry references thrown in there? For those reading that did read that chapter, perhaps you caught them. I want to say thank you so much to those taking the time to go through this story and enjoy it on the last day of this year because when I see you all again for this piece, we won't be in 2016 anymore, huh? I don't know when I'll be updating this story again as my schedule next week is blocky and uncertain, but I'm striving for maybe getting it up by Tuesday at the earliest, and the 8th, which is a Sunday at the latest. Hope to see you all for Chapter #5: The Boston Target. Please review and let me know what you thought, especially on Link and what dream Shulk just had at the end of this chapter. I promise you that we'll be seeing more of Robin shortly, and she's actually the... (counts on fingers), 5th main character of Syrenet so that's a bonus. Thanks again for stopping by. I love you all so much! Thanks for making 2016 such an awesome year in the fandom, and see you in 2017! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	5. Chapter 5: The Boston Target

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, #5: The Boston Target. Thank you all so much for waiting patiently and with bated breath for this update to come out as I apologize for the lack of updates since the new year. It just means I'm busier than ever and all that good jazz, depending. I've got some down time this weekend and I've decided to slough through and try to do as much as I can. We're about to dive into the very first arc of this story, though I haven't truly given it a name as that it still being decided. And holy mother of everything holy, you guys killed it with the reviews! Thank you so much! Here are your replies!**

 **mythicalmunchkin- First off, hello! It's great to see a new face reviewing my work and being so kind about it. That means a lot. Addressing the complaint you had, since I have no idea how acquainted you are with my writing, I generally take the whole 'fan' think of this a little far in where a majority of my writing is original thoughts and I reference people and things from their franchises but I try to be very discreet about it. I apologize for the inconvenience, but I appreciate that you'll try to stick around! Most of my work is AU, or actually** ** _all_** **of it is, and me writing in Alternate Universes just opens the doors, I suppose.**

 **SolarEnergy07- Great to hear from you again bud! And yep, that was exactly my reasoning for switching Link and Snake's characters, as my original hope for this mob boss persona wasn't Snake at all, but (M) Corrin being just... well, everything I suppose. Thanks so much for the compliments! And I won't tell you who shall be appearing in this story or not, I spoil way too much I feel at times.**

 **Mr. Squirtle6- And even moreso, glad to see ya too! Thanks for sticking by through the thick and the thin with Icarus Chronicle this year, as I really appreciate it. Hope this helps with the whole 'looking forward to more'.**

 **Ike4ever- I really love Link's character (I'm gonna be saying this a LOT it seems like for the next couple review replies to everyone about his character, as I'm really taking a leap of faith here on his character), and the dialogue was no cincher. And the reason there is why I'm writing in present tense, as I feel like I'm the character, and writing in past tense with -ed, while I like it, it takes a lot longer for me to pour my soul into something I love so much. Formal writing generally goes as present tense, so why not fiction, hm?**

 **Maxcy Leland- Holy smokes, this review is long. *laughs* You weren't kidding. And awww, you're so sweet! That can't be one of the best things in 2016, I've only known ya for like a month! Gosh, I haven't been told anything nicer, thank you so much. I'm only going to address the Chapter 4 review as these are review replies for Chapter 4. Yeah, Link is doing exactly what I wanted him to do, which is a very good thing. Glad you liked it.**

 **The Reader II- I generally say, especially when I give a date on where I'm updating, tend to be quick. I need to be as dedicated to my work as possible, as I'd like this to be a profession of mine. Glad you liked it!**

 **Wow, that took an eon. Keep em coming though! Anyways, enjoy Chapter #5: The Boston Target.**

* * *

Roy finally understands what it means to be out of place. With all the bustling of the Boston Operation, crates of technological equipment that he can't even spell, the rough tongues of western accents and northern dialects, the sounds of motorized trucks moving down the freeways... the commotion and commerce, he shouldn't be here. Roy Arcadia is out of his element. He's no longer in Kansas anymore, that's for sure.

The redhead hugs his sides tighter, remembering Shulk's last words before he stepped onto the plane heading out from D.C. " _Trust no one that can't trust you._ " Shulk's words ring in his head. Sounds simplistic enough, he supposes. He's just upset that Corrin herself couldn't be the one to ship him off to his death. Hah, he's running scared. Roy Arcadia thinks he's going to die. Probability has it that he'll die. It's fate, right?

He's hunched over, sitting on a box of loaded ammo for sniper rifles, the jutting of the plastic hurting his legs as he shifts on his perch uncomfortably. Roy's holding a metallic disk in his hands, likewise to the one Shulk used when showing off Lucas. It's his AI Unit, given by Pit himself. His armor is sitting in a suitcase just a few feet away from him in arm's reach, a gorgeous metallic suit dyed a putrid scarlet, like rippling waves of blood. The brunette's jovial smile warms Roy's heart as he realizes that he misses everyone at the compound a lot. Ike shipped himself out to the Virginian countryside for a few days with Pit to go and visit a friend that he has yet to meet, meaning Shulk is left all alone at headquarters to his nightmares with Lucas as his accompaniment. Not that the blonde AI Unit can't be friendly, not at all.

Roy looks around and sees that no one any time soon is going to go over to him and talk. No one wants to chat with the new kid. He shouldn't even be here. The redhead sighs, giving in and pressing the button in the middle of the circular metal disk. The outer ring lights a deep fuchsia before sprouting out a blueberry glow. Appearing before him is his AI Unit, the one and only Ness Morrison.

Ness pinches the bridge of his nose, shaking his head in dissent. "You're doubting yourself again, aren't you?"

"N- no..." Roy sputters.

The soldier bites on his lower lip, having a confession to make. " _I'm absolutely doubting myself. I'm nervous beyond nervous and there's nothing I can do about it. If I back out, I'm fired. I advance into whatever this is, I'm probably going to get killed._ " On second thought, maybe speaking to Ness is not the best idea. His AI Unit is designed to be about thirteen or fourteen, and the equivalent of one of those smart alecks in class that you wanted to punch in the face half the time yet needed their company. People like that confuse Roy Arcadia way too much. The teenager phase, as his mom is to more than likely put it.

God, Roy Arcadia even misses his mother.

His AI Unit rocks back and forth on his heels, Ness's dark wave of raven hair tucked behind an archaic cardinal and navy baseball cap, reminiscent of the roaring 1920's. His shirt is of the same color, fluorescent and bright and all too sunny for the sarcastic kid standing on the disk. "Well, given that it's the fifth time you've wanted to speak to me in..." he looks at a clock somewhere in his digital world, where Roy could never venture into, chewing on the inside of his cheek. "Thirty minutes. I'd say that makes you a candidate for loneliness."

Roy places a fist underneath his chin. "Did anyone ever tell you that sometimes people don't need your opinions?"

He shrugs. "It's in my programming, Mr. Arcadia. I can't change that."

The redhead goes to turn the disk off again, despite knowing in a good two minutes he'll be tempted to bring back the only person willing to speak with him. His hand hovers over the button, pausing to gander all available options. "I won't turn you off-"

"I was hoping you kind of would," Ness says, crossing his arms. "I'm just about to finish paving the road that leads to nowhere inside my city."

Roy eyes the AI Unit. "I don't understand how there can be an entire world placed into that disk that is separate from all the other units in Syrenet."

"Complicated stuff, Mr. Arcadia. There isn't any other word for it. I-"

"Hey, kid? Stop talking with your imaginary friend and get over here!" someone barks behind him, causing Roy to jump.

Ness rolls his eyes. "Go and see what that guy wants. Looks like he's the one with all the authority around here." He blips off, leaving Roy alone.

The redhead breathes deeply, getting off the ammo box. The stabbing feeling in his leg is strange and unwelcoming, alien to him as there's a tingling replacing the lack of blood. The person who called to him is standing about ten yards away or so, arms crossed, and looking quite impatient. Roy observes the man like an operative would've generally, and takes zero liking to him. The male's face is flushed, burning a sharp red. Beads of sweat trickle down his neck, a lining of sticky syrup coagulating his fingertips as if he had just finished a day of hard work. The man's beard is starting to poke through slowly, oak stubble emerging from a pale chin. Roy's eyes perceive the man, and he senses sadness, tiredness, and in the soldier himself he can feel disappointment leeching off like wisps of smoke. He wants to say that he saw a man of dignity, a man with mahogany eyes that scream passion and love and boldness. What Roy sees back, it's not the truth that his dreams wanted to aspire, nor what he envisioned.

Roy reaches the gentleman, and is surprised to see he has a hand outstretched to shake the redhead's. He welcomes the greeting happily, shaking eagerly and earnestly. "Sir!"" he says eagerly.

The man nods, rubbing his chin. "You must be Roy Arcadia, right?"

"Yes sir," the redhead answers. Never again will he go a day without saying yes ma'am and yes sir to anyone of any importance around D.C or anywhere else after the mess up he ran into with Shulk back at headquarters.

"I'm Snake Karlo, the head director of the FBI."

Roy feels partly stupid at the fact he didn't recognize the man, save the fact that Snake's portrait is plastered just about everywhere in Langley. He smiles breathlessly, his palms starting to sweat. "It's an honor to meet you sir. I-"

"I know all about you," Snake interrupts him gently, raising a hand. "Best of your graduating class from the academy and could've been one of the finest agents we've ever had," the older man grimaces. "Cept' you gave it all away for an out of the blue opportunity handed down to you from the White House. I'll say it was just silly, Mr. Arcadia."

He frowns. _Silly? Why silly?_ Roy only smiles back again, unsure of how to proceed. "If it comes from Madam President herself, it's hard to ignore her wishes."

Snake nods his head at that. "That is something I can agree with."

The two stand awkwardly in the middle of the runway, as the sun starts to go down. Hazy lines of amaranthine and halcyon and sunburst orange race across the sky like hares all aiming to be the first person to reach the finish line. Snake scratches the back of his neck, and Roy catches sight of a scar lining the inside of his bicep, the FBI director wearing a simple solid color polo and slacks. Roy returns to biting on his lip. Stupid habit. "So... what did you call me over for?"

The FBI director blinks, as if he's been caught off guard, and he almost goes as red as Roy's hair. "Oh, sorry, Mr. Arcadia... I lose track of time a lot."

"Call me Roy, please," he admonishes. He does not deserve to be referred to so formally, least not by the head of one of the divisions in the Federal government when he all he ever will be for Syrenet is a lowly grunt doing the dirty work.

"Well, Roy, other operatives in Boston have told me that Link has put his name down on the reservation list for dinner at a local restaurant downtown."

"Oh? Where?" his interest is piqued, all to help the case go smoothly as if he knows what they're eating, it'll be simple for him to be even more comfortable.

"Italian. A Mama's Kitchen inspired type of place," Snake shrugs. "I don't know-" he catches a gleam in the boy's eyes. "What?"

"Italian food is my favorite out there," Roy grins. "Especially linguini."

"Okay. Just Italian?" Snake asks, unsure of what to do with all of this information. He checks his watch, seeing that he's very late. "This mission, I assume has been described to you already by Corrin and Shulk back in D.C?" Roy nods in assent. "Just the basics, I imagine, as this is all done to me to give you the specifics. You'll be spending three days in Boston with Link Collins. He's the most reliable source for firearms that Syrenet has in the whole country, and now we have suspicion to believe he's helping the enemy. There's a transaction in two days time from now, on Friday, and you need to be there and observing just exactly what goes on."

Roy frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Who will Link be greeting? Is it a rebel spy or one of our own? If it's one of us, then there's nothing to worry about. Link is totally harmless," the older man explains. "If it's anyone else than us... then you know he's doing shady things under the table at our expense, which cannot happen. And then that means you have to eliminate Link Collins to prevent him from causing any more damage."

The redhead whistles lowly. "That sounds kind of extreme, don't you think?"

"Madam Corrin will pay every expense there is and shed no matter how much blood in keeping this country safe," Snake's gaze is sharp, cold, and calculating. "Frankly, I'd do the same thing in your place. I'd put a bullet in the guy's head before there could be any more trouble and clean ship, but I don't run the rules around here."

"So what am I doing tonight?" Roy inquires.

"Having dinner with your new associate. All Link knows about you is that you're a hotshot from D.C willing and wanting to join his team of weapon makers. Becoming the right hand fellow, or something stupid like that. Besides that, Mr. Collins knows nothing about you, so you're able to tell him whatever you want. Including your name."

"That... that doesn't sound safe," he drops his voice, the alarm bells going off in his head. You were never supposed to share information that could compromise you, ever. And now he's getting free reign to tell a potential 'bad guy' whatever he wants? Suspicious. "I'm not sure..."

"If you want to give him a cover up story, then by all means do it," Snake says exasperated. "If you're bothered to think of one right now and have it check out on the way to dinner, be my guest. Unfortunately, to help you blend, you will not have the Syrenet suit with you. It'll be shipped by us later in the evening to an apartment just a few blocks from one of Link's plants, easy enough to access should there be something that needs you to get to a 'safe' place.

"Wait..." Roy frowns once more. "If I don't have my suit, then that means I also don't have Ness in my head helping me out either. I'll be blind, with no escape routes."

Snake holds up a finger, rummaging deep into his pocket. " _That_ we did think of," He pulls out a chip of some kind, nothing too fancy. "Use this." He hands it to Roy.

The redhead rubs his thumb over the strange device. It was a three by three malleable strip, about as thin as a Band-Aid width wise, nothing deeper than a quarter. His fingers gloss over the back, something sticky feeling around the base. "What is it?"

"A technological advancement developed by Pit Icarus himself. You've got the prototype," Snake puts his hands back into his pocket as he goes and explains over the piece of technology. "A tiny little piece of the Syrenet framework that connects you to Ness from your Syrenet suit and the metallic disk that you can't have with you. You press it once to turn it on, and you'll feel the skin warm up a bit. You turn it off, and the skin will cool. The back is sticky, making it adhesive to your skin. Painless to peel off, easy to stick. Place it somewhere on your body and if you need to have Ness alongside you to help, he'll be there in a second flat."

"That- that's kind of cool!" Roy's eyes brighten once more.

"I'll be in Boston for a week after the mission is over, doing one last check. If you ever need anything beforehand that Ness can't help you with and you need assistance from a higher up such as myself, then you contact me. I'll be leaving a business card with my number on it in the crate carrying your Syrenet suit," Snake remarks, closing Roy's fist around the device. "Any questions, Roy?"

Roy swallows the fear that he had no idea he had been holding, and nods. "No sir."

* * *

Link loves the noise of a busy, crowded restaurant. The weapons dealer smiles smugly at the passing waiters and waitresses, eyes lingering down one of the waitress's skirt. She makes a squeak, bustling away from him with lightning speed. He laughs heartily, tapping the cigarette in his left hand against the ashtray. He takes a drag, exhaling smoke out in a white plume. He knows that he can't smoke inside, but if he did it in the President of the United States office, then who's to tell him no while at a restaurant that he paid for? Link has never enjoyed getting underneath someone's skin as much as President Corrin's. It's almost as if she lets him, truth be told.

The blonde leans back against the leather of the booth, sighing deeply. His flight is average and boring, the only excitement being a baby vomiting all over his expensive dress shoes, like three thousand dollar shoes. All the man could've done is smile sweetly when deep down he wanted to strangle the cute human till they were blue in the face. "I had to make fourteen different transactions to be able to pay for those shoes, and a baby who's only been alive for two months pukes on them as if that hard work was for naught," he snarks to himself, taking another puff on the cigarette. "Those who do not work will never understand just how hard people like me _do_ to get we have."

His gaze slyly swoops from the empty dinner table to the front door of the restaurant, as somebody had been walking in. Link's eyes catch glimpse of a redhead, average height, and then he's sitting up, even more intently. The man and the hostess exchange a few words that Link cannot hear, and then she's leading him back to _his_ table and Link realizes, or more so comes to terms with that the guy in front of him is the new recruit.

"Mr. Collins, he's here," the hostess says simply, nodding. The guy behind her gives a half hearted wave as she retreats away back to the front where it is safe. Link smiles to himself. No place is safe away from a guy like him.

The two stare down at each other, their gazes narrowed, calculating every move, the nuances and behaviors. While Roy is looking to see if Link is truly threatening up close, the blonde is determining the redhead's worth. A moment of silence passes between them before Link breaks into a smile. "Well, color me purple and call me a plum," he expresses joy by standing up and shaking Roy's hand. "Pleased to meet ya, kid! It's Link, Link Collins!"

"Roy Arcadia, sir."

"Don't be so formal around me. If you want to be a part of Collins Industry, you're family!" Link throws his arms out wide, and Roy takes it as his cue to sit.

The redhead sits down at a chair which is across the table from Link, but he frowns and beckons that the man sit closer. Roy swallows and gets nearer, sitting in the booth. Link scoots over to make some room, while Roy directs himself to sit an angle where Link couldn't see the back of his neck. Link taps the cigarette out into the ashtray, clearing his throat.

"I must admit, your application seemed eager, son."

"Oh, yeah," Roy nods his head. "I just needed something to get into, and people back home mentioned stuff like arms dealing to me, so I thought why not."

"Where ya from?" Link's eyes gleam, looking for weaknesses.

Roy's prepared, _perhaps_ too prepared if there is such a thing. "Back in D.C. I was- I was in the academy about to be reinstated to the FBI."

"Yeah, yeah!" the arms dealer claps his hands excitedly. "Your file mentioned that, right? Top of the academy's graduating class? Sounds like I've got myself a keeper," Link smiles, and the redhead's skin begins to crawl as if he's being attacked by a rabid army of fleas. "Man, what would've happened to you at the FBI to want to go and work for someone like me? I don't have the best... reputation in Washington, you know."

He shrugs. "People deserve second chances."

"Well then that means I'm on my millionth chance," Link jokes, now wishing he didn't put out his cigarette. He hails down a waitress, a cute girl with two pigtails, and he has half the mind to snicker and call her a child though she looks like she's in her thirties. "I'm gonna order," he says, and then looks at Roy. "You hungry?"

"I'm starving," Roy answers earnestly, and Link notices that he goes to scratch his neck feverishly and fervently. "The bags of peanuts were only a snack."

"I'm gonna start a drink tab," Link tells the waitress. "Get me a Bud's Light and a Blue Moon for him."

"Food?" she asks, writing down the order of alcohol.

"Shrimp Scampi." He replies, unraveling his silverware.

"And for you, sir?" the waitress turns to Roy.

"Any pasta specials?" the redhead leans forward just a little, but not too far forward where Link can see the device from Snake stuck to the back of his neck. The device is glowing yellow, and Roy hears Ness's voice in his head.

" _Order what you want, just like Snake said,"_ Ness instructs. " _He's not going to know otherwise anything about you._ "

"Pick your pasta, and add meat for two fifty," she recites, to answer Roy's question. "On Sundays we do half-off for pasta dishes..." and then the waitress gives Link a nervous glance, starting to sweat. Link frowns. He's just sitting there. "How- however... today, there's nothing."

Roy pats the table. "I'll take an order of linguini," he orders. "It's my favorite."

The two men lock eye contact, and Link jumps in his seat some. " _Linguini?_ " he thinks. Link turns his grim frown into a twisted smile. "Interesting choice."

"I'll put that right in for you. Holler if you need anything," the waitress says, putting the notepad back into her apron, bustling away from the table and into the kitchen. Roy sighs and scratches his neck again, turning off Ness's input.

Link eyes the other man's hand. "What's wrong with your neck, son?"

"Nothing. Just a nasty scab." the redhead lies through his teeth, though if comes out as if rehearsed.

The blonde eyes Roy once, before sitting up. "Well, given that I eat here normally every time I come to Boston, I know how slow their kitchen is. It'll be an entire hour before our food comes, so I think this is the perfect time to get to know you," Link says, then he holds his hands up innocently. "If that's alright with you, I mean. I like to know all I can about whom I may be working with, and asking for hired muscle to do dirty work isn't as easy as it may sound, kid."

The two begin discussing their lives, and every so often, Link sees Roy touch the back of his neck, but it is almost done so quickly he wouldn't have caught it in the first place. During their conversations, dinner comes, and Roy gobbles it down so fast that it almost appeared as if it never had been ordered. Often times Link would ask pretty difficult questions that would trip up people if they weren't prepared for an 'interview', but Link is doing it simply to test the waters.

" _Whatever your game your playing, Madam Corrin,"_ he thinks darkly. " _Just know I'm playing every step of the way with my own, too. Game on._ "

* * *

 **There we are you guys, Chapter #5: The Boston Target. I know that this chapter may not feel as lively and a little bit subdued more than usual, but I hope it's still as enjoyable as ever. Looks like Roy's Boston operation is in motion, and who knows what's in store. Let's take a poll! Who thinks that Link is guilty for selling weapons to the rebels? Who thinks that he's innocent? Only time will tell, and I'll be dropping subtle hints as to what as we go along the story. Just keep in mind how long this piece is destined to be (40+), okay? It'll put into perspective certain plot lines. Anyways, thanks so much for reading and thank you all so much for the reviews that keep piling up as I couldn't ask for more! I hope to see you all again for Chapter #6: Lucid Operations. You all have a wonderful day, and thanks for being amazing readers and people. Love you all! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	6. Chapter 6: Lucid Operations

**Hello everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, #6: Lucid Operations. Boy oh boy, hasn't it been awhile ladies and gentlemen? I believe it has. Already addressed in my other two updates of my two other main stories, I have simply been a lazy slob which is purely uncharacteristic of me, so I plan on making this chapter the best one there ever was (which isn't possible, but I'll try my hardest). I have to say, you guys killed it with the reviews and that made me very happy to see and read. Replies on their way!**

 **SolarEnergy07- Link is dangerous my man, never underestimate him again or he very well may be putting a knife to your throat. And, thank you for the compliment! I know that my writings are totally OOC, but these characters can fit any persona if done just right and I like to think I can partly do them justice.**

 **Ike4ever- Snake is awesome! Glad you think that! Yep, Corrin did slip. There'll be a lot of things in Syrenet that you may find harmless but really will mess up with the psyche and everything going on. Hahahaha, if you think wanting to punch characters in the face is bad, you should've seen the fandom's reaction to Shulk in The Raven and the Lion, as some reviewers who read the story will tell you, that guy was a jerk and a *bleep* that well, everyone hated.**

 **Mr. Squirtle6- I appreciate that more than you'll ever know, the compliment I really took to my heart. I find it impossible that a 17 year-old like me can even have that gratifying effect on anyone and that humbles me, it really does. Thank you. Glad to see you're still excited. Icarus Chronicle has really affected me and how I write, I've discovered, and I hope you see it.**

 **CrashGuy01- I'm starting to look forward to your reviews as we move along this piece, and since there'll be a lot of chapters, I hope to get a lot of reviews! :D I am always going to be hard on my work, so of course when I say I think it's my best (like Native, for example), I get told that it isn't.**

 **SeththeGreat- Hmmm... that's a good thought. I came to a conclusion though, it's called, The Arcadia Test arc.**

 **Maxcy Leland- Oh don't worry, Snake will be back and he's bringing vengeance with him if you know what I mean. The red haired boy must watch his back. I love your deductive skills of the story, and perhaps you'll have the entire plot figured out by the time we get to like Chapter 20, lol. Uh... no, he does not. Roy, does not know of Shulk's nightmares, and he won't know for a very long while, reasons I won't get into as of now, so be patient.**

 **mythicalmunchkin- It's cool having you first this time around, glad to see ya! I understand what you're saying, and I'll try to adapt somewhat with what I have written, but I can be upfront, it won't be much. I suppose you can say I take the word 'fan' in fanfiction perhaps too far. Of course, I'm grateful you even find my writing to be good with as it is. AND, I hate to break it to you, we don't see Kirby. I'm sorry.**

 **Alright, enough chitchat. Enjoy Chapter #6: Lucid Operations.**

* * *

The camera bursts on with a roar of static, frizzling, jagged lines of black and white dashing out like pellets of rain skyrocketing down a window during a thunderstorm on a car going a hundred miles an hour down the freeway. Background noise of shuffling is heard on the video, however the noise comes from off camera, the camera positioned on the carpeted floor of an apartment that has several charcoal stains painting a flower with a grotesque bleakness. The sound of a knife can be heard off camera as well, like someone cutting up carrots or possibly fingers if that was the effect the video was going for.

A face appears a few moments later in the grim murkiness of the film, Roy Arcadia's haggard face showing the signs of wear and tear from the dinner with Link Collins. A napkin with a few diced up carrots sits in his palm, crumpled up like his own hopes and dreams after having the scariest night of his life. He pops one into his mouth and chews on it like a gummy marshmallow, letting it sit and break up by saliva. Roy's red hair is darker than usual on the film, and in the shadows of his apartment, Roy feels alone.

He positions the camera some more again, then waves with the hand not holding the napkin, swallowing the carrot down his throat. Roy cracks his knuckles once, then again, and one more time just to make sure they were properly destroyed as the sound of released air gives him euphoria and chills up and down his spine. A breath is drawn outward as he stares blank faced at the camera, unsure of what to say, and the breath is so long and spacious that it feels like a recursive disease splinting open his ribcage with rust particles and bits of bone flaying everywhere.

His Adam's apple in his throat resembles that of a rock when he swallows, grainy, coarse, and hurting.

Roy coughs up a carrot onto the carpet, disgusted at the mauled up bit of veggie, orange strands splintered out like bits of tweed. Pressing a hand against the back of his neck to rip off the sticker device that let Ness sit in his head the entire night, he is ready to begin after such drastic preparations. He drops the piece of tape and lets it fall to the floor. Whatever help the device gave him, it is piss poor and he has a few choice words to give to Snake the next time he sees him.

 _If_ he ever sees him again, more likely.

"This is documentation one of the Boston Target, agent Roy Arcadia of Alpha Unit, under the charge of Shulk Roberts, and on this mission, FBI director Snake Karlo," he states to the camera as official registration of his title and purpose for the video, required by the documentation of the mission. "I do not know how many videos of these I have to make, but since I'm scared to all hell for my life and may die at any moment, let this be augmentative evidence against any presumable case towards arms dealer Link Collins."

A scratch in his throat turns to another cough, and he turns away to let the tremor in his chest pass. His hair flips around like a flaming tornado, resting against the nape of his neck. Roy wipes at his mouth, returning to the camera when the storm in his chest cavity passes. "Tonight, I just had dinner with the famed Link Collins. My mission is to spy on him and see whether or not he's supplying the rebel forces of the Midwest with weapons to dismantle the young Syrenet project. I am in Boston as his new right hand man, but only to dish any dirt that I find," he explains.

"I've never been so scared of someone in my entire life," Roy admits, and a blush settles there on his cheek. He feels like a king without a horse to ride on or a sword to swing. Roy Arcadia has been given an automatic lifeline to Snake's phone, Ness as a backup resource for confidence and relaying of messages, and even a suit decked out like armor to protect him, yet he's never felt more alone than as he does now, sitting in the cramped and damp apartment. The carpet smells of a dying rat, the curtains are riddled with bullet holes, and the pillars of moonlight do not have resting places against the chipped, greyscale walls. The bed is covered in a thin layer of dust, that when he blew off the sand, it piled up into a little dune at the foot of the headrest. Looks like Roy's going back to sleeping on the floor. Just like his college years. "Link Collins knows how to drill through you like you're on some stupid game show," he shakes his head. "I'm unsure whether or not to be ashamed or just accept that I probably screwed up. I kept touching my neck at dinner to turn my AI Unit, Ness, on and off. I hadn't thought of another place to put it, like a damn idiot."

Roy rubs his face, getting up and getting a drink of water. Luckily for him, Snake had thought of everything in advance food and drink wise, giving him countless packages of water bottles, and then cans of soda upon cans of soda, _and_ in case he needed to drown his sorrows in a ruby red liquid: twelve bottles of Merlot, never opened, and fresh from the vineyard. His hand lingers on the wine bottle for a moment, then he abandons the notion. All Link needs is a drunk Roy Arcadia to spill every secret known to man about Syrenet and then he ends up dead by sunrise, a knife in his throat, pinned to the harbor overlooking the northern Atlantic. He places himself back down in front of the camera.

"He also got weird with me for a few minutes after I ordered linguini pasta, saying it had been my favorite. He got all... quiet," Roy says, then frowns. "We were having Italian," he adds, knowing it'd help settle the mood. "I am unsure whether or not he had found something else about me that bothers him, or he just has a horrible relationship with that pasta. Either way, it has me on edge. An edge I'm unsure I appreciate."

A creak comes from down the hall, and Roy's gaze snaps to it, hand going to his waist side where he had placed a pistol for safekeeping. There is another one located in the bathroom atop the shower head, another gun under his pillow, and then as a last measure, a knife atop the refrigerator. He needs to be as safe as possible, and though that means his attackers could use his very weapons against him, which would be ironic in that of itself. He can picture the headlines now. _Man dead by the very weapons sworn to protect him. No one ever really cared._ Roy's breathing is shallow, and riddled in it is the emotion of fear, like curled, bony witch fingers over an unsuspecting lad's face. The creaking starts to dwindle down the hall, and he looks at the lock on the door, seeing it is indeed shut and no one could enter without a bough of brute force. Roy wants it to stay that way.

"Sorry," he apologizes, face burning the same color as his hair. "I'm just a little jumpy. Being a Syrenet agent now means I have to be suspicious of everyone and everything against me. Someone may like our president and the country, but the moment you switch to Syrenet, those very same people may want to kill you. Not a fun experience, as you can imagine. As I was saying..." Roy shifts somewhat on the carpet, his left foot falling asleep. He shakes it around and accidentally whacks himself in the face, like being bludgeoned by a club. "There's something fishy about Link Collins. He's acted like a cat running scared, and men who are not guilty of anything can walk free. No man who is not guilty acts like he has something to hide. Guilty men have something to hide, and Link Collins is hiding something. He's guilty of something, I'm sure of it..." he chews on the inside of his cheek. "Although, it very well may be an expired parking ticket, as a man can be trivialized for a crime any day in this country it seems."

On the drive home from the restaurant, Link does not shut up about his adventures. The blonde arms dealer tells the redhead that for the longest time, he had been the most silent boy you'd ever meet, one that simply nodded his head and is respectful to all those who came near him, though Link did not receive the same courtesy. When he came of age, or in college for his simplistic terms, he beat up or killed everyone in his past who wronged him, but it is never _his_ hand that dealt the final blow. Link is sure to mention that to Roy. He stands over his opponents, wanting to be called Master of Time, as he swore to those he hated that he'd appear again to them in the shadows of the night as a weeping angel of destruction, whose eyes held no mercy.

Roy's still unsure of how to respond to getting told that, and from the looks of everything, the cab driver is just as perplexed and horrified. He scratches the back of his neck again, the sticky adhesive responding like a fly in a glue trap. "That Link Collins, I tell you, he's insane. Insane as a dog who's tried Mad Hatter, and not the good stuff. He never shuts up, either. I don't need to know about his mistresses and men that he's screwed, most definitely," he grimaces. "But who am I kidding, right? Me talking about him like this behind his back isn't going to make my job any easier come tomorrow."

He takes a breath. This is the part he's afraid of reaching, the one he's afraid of telling. Nothing can be kept secret from this camera, as Roy has an innate feeling deep down that all must be shared or otherwise the truth isn't truly known. Link reveals to him in the cab ride one of his favorite blades, as if a man is supposed to have a favorite weapon like one would a nickname, color, or ice cream flavor. Apparently, as the blonde puts it, if someone does not have a favorite weapon, they are lesser than a man. All men need to get their hands dirty in some way, shape, or form. He nicks Roy in the neck with it slightly, giving one last friendly threat that if Roy Arcadia is not the man he believes him to be, then there'll be a red sun rising in the Boston skyline the morning after. Roy swallows at the threat, but still kindly thanks Link when getting out of the cab and running inside, shaking and wishing to cry the whole time.

"He's bringing me to the compound tomorrow, his largest factory located right here in Boston. Home base," Roy says. "He's going to show me what the Collins name does for business and I've got no way to prepare for what I'm about to do. At the very least, it'll be cold tomorrow so I've got a place to put Ness underneath my wrist where my thump can access it if need be. I'm terrified, whoever will be seeing this..." he leans into the camera, gripping it.

The words want to come out, but they're not giving him the satisfaction of making it so easy. Up close, in the camera, you can see the wound inflicted on his neck, the scar, the matted facial hair around it, the drying blood. Roy swallows the rock that is his Adam's apple, the fear apparent in his eyes, though in front of Link he must remain strong, and strong he'll remain.

"I cannot wait for this to be over," he admits breathlessly. "If a new Syrenet employee gets this someday after I'm long dead, never accept the request to go on a mission so soon into your introductory seminary, it'll be the death of you. I'm already dead, before I even arrived in Boston."

He drops the camera to the ground, pressing the off button.

Roy stops halfway into his bedroom, one foot over the threshold of the bedroom, the other stuck in the living room, pausing. What is the feeling in his throat? His hands immediately seize said body part, and he coughs. Something is lodged deep down, an object stuck. Roy's choking, and then he kicks out, falling to the tiled floor. Something shatters, and he yelps a horrible scream. He cannot get whatever is stuck in his throat out, and sooner than later, he can feel the darkness consuming him.

Black ants bore into his skull before he passes out.

* * *

Link Collins drums his fingers against the desk, one hand hovering over his computer mouse pad, left hand middle finger twitching inexplicably. His eyes begin to follow the same regiment, and it's an unbearable coping mechanism of his stress. He bites down on his tongue, drawing the sourness and coppery taste of blood forth, swallowing it down with relish. It almost tasted as half good as the chicken alfredo he had ordered. Roy's eyes flash behind his own, and for a split second, a feeling of incorrigible rage passes over him. It is gone as soon as it arrives, and he's unsure of how to address it.

By the back door to his room, there is some padding on the carpet, extra weight that he can sense imbued in his fingertips. Link locks his jaw, tousled blonde hair messy from rolling around in his covers, plagued by an insomniac attack. "Yes? What is it?" he barks.

The padding shifts some more and before him walks a person, one he certainly did not give permission to come and see him. It's nothing more than of his simple guardsmen, as Link likes to refer to them as. The boy is decked all in red, and the arms dealer is once again reminded of Roy Arcadia, the twisting of his hand into a fist. Link decides to give the boy in front of him a name, and because of what he's wearing, he's now Red. There. Simple and easy.

Red's hair line is covered in a cold sweat, one Link wishes to understand the reasoning of, which he perhaps will find out soon enough. "Mr. Collins, there's been a problem-"

"Problem?" Link's train of thought comes to a screeching halt. Problem is not one of his favorite words, not be a longshot. His eyes turn an icy blue. "What sort of problem?"

"The plant..." Red is unable to get the words out.

"If you can't speak on your own volition, perhaps I'll have someone else tell me it, unless you're not as impudent as you look," he snaps. "What. Is. It?"

"The plant in Portland was just bombed, Mr. Collins," the poor boy yelps, frightened. "By rebels and a stolen shipment from the Oklahoma City plant, too."

Link jolts to his feet, slapping Red across the face. The boy crumples to the floor, and the blonde stands over him with seething rage. "Do you think I wanted to know that? That was something that just _had_ to be shared, boy? Get out of my room! Now! Why can't you be sensible like everyone else on this compound and tell me in the morning like a normal person!" he grabs Red by the shirt collar, pulling him close. "Portland is four hours behind us right now. It's nearly three in the morning and you're invading my personal, private time. Go!"

He lets Red go, the boy's face gone as pale as a sheet. Red scampers off, tail between his legs, muttering apologies of all kind. Link slinks back into his chair, defeated. He rubs a hand over his face, pulling his eyelids down. In the wake of his slap, Link's computer had turned off and he gets a glimpse of his reflection. Barbaric, cruel, and downright nasty. He hates what stares back at him. The fire in his eyes pools around him, and that's enough for him to press the Skype chat button on the computer screen after turning it on.

The blonde chews on the cuticles of his fingers while he waits for her to respond. In a flash, it happens, and Link has never felt better. The face of president Corrin Etch appears on his computer screen, though while he may be happy to see her, she isn't happy to see him.

"What?" Corrin snaps. "Any idea how late it is and you're deciding to call me? You nearly woke half the White House."

Despite his situation, Link cannot help but smile at the same old Corrin, the same old blizzard lady he remembers from his youth with daring escapades of teeth, sunshine, blankets and babies. "I need you to help cheer my mood," he says, leaning forward. "Besides, I'm bored."

The president sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Are you kidding me? Link, I am not someone you can just ring up whenever you need me! I'm president of this country and-"

"Because of it I have all these responsibilities and blah, blah, blah, blah," Link waves a hand at the computer screen nonchalantly. "Do not bore me with what you have to do for a nation that you know does not truly love you. I'm just sitting here, having a pleasant time with my thoughts and this worker of mine tells me that Portland has just been raided."

Corrin's eyes widen at the news. "The entire city?" her face goes white. That's a national emergency. How- Link can picture the thoughts running through the president's head. _Why hasn't someone woken me up? What am I going to do? Oh god, oh god, ohgodohgodohgodohgod..._

"Not the whole city," he corrects her. "My plant. Attacked by rebels and blown up by my very same weapons. I can't ever get a day of peace with this damn job. I'm pulled in so many directions that I should be crowned mom of the year, Corrin, and I don't even have breasts!" Link throws his hands up at the mentioning of the female body part, Corrin sighing once more in exasperation.

"You really need to get a better hold of your merchandise," she says.

"That's it?" Link looks at her with a contemptuous gaze. "For me to tighten the yoke on my establishments? How about some help, Madame President? Send Syrenet to help my workers! It's my plants and compounds after all that give you the weapons to supply your little robotic force of peacemakers," he snarks. "Besides, I know you. You cannot stand to lose valuable customers."

She looks lost, throwing a hand up like his but moreso out of confusion. "I can't do anything for you right now, Link. Syrenet is all either scattered around the country or back here in D.C, asleep. We don't have teleportation abilities, and if I did, then I still wouldn't use it for the likes of you! The nearest unit is the Ichor squad in Bismarck, North Dakota, trying to build up a branch there. After that, I have the Winter squad in Phoenix doing a hunting job for a cartel boss. You're on your own for now."

"Send the men in D.C for me," Link says, though his voice is rougher and it feels like an order than a gentle request.

Corrin's eyes are impossibly sad. "There's only five or six real Syrenet warriors here in D.C. Shulk Roberts, Ike Forgenson, Marth Lowell, who's still recovering, Pit Icarus... not a band of twenty or thirty who can turn back a rebellion."

"Send them anyways..." His voice does not waver.

"You care about no one else other than yourself, do you?" she chides, shaking her head in dissent, white hair tuckered into a ponytail. "That we're all here to help you, when in reality you help me. Does that somehow make sense in your twisted brain?"

Link looks away, then goes back to Corrin after being silent for a mere moment. "It is clear that you are not going to help me. I am just as powerless as you are in this situation, Madame President, in that chair in the Oval Office. I care about those who work for me like brothers and sisters, though I sure as hell don't treat them good. Get some rest, then. I- I'm sorry for disturbing you."

Corrin opens her mouth to rebuttal, but by that point, Link pulls out a gun from the drawer and shoots at the monitor till it goes black.

In his head, the echoes of firebomb explosions and the cry of death radiates in his ears.

He runs a hand through his hair, before crumbling onto the desk in a wail of tears.

No help comes for the lonely Link Collins that night, or any other night afterwards, it may seem.

* * *

At night, Syrenet headquarters are quiet, too quiet for Marth Lowell's liking, but he learns to deal with it on days such as this where there's only five or six people working, the others across America or at home resting for the brink of a war that'll never come. Marth is sitting in the lobby of headquarters, alone at a table surrounded by plastic and metal chairs. The remnants of dinner are still stuck to the outer rim, spaghetti sauce and globules of Pit's vomit from him getting sick at the smell of fried octopi. Shulk is an excellent chef, which Marth reminded the blonde as he eat octopi doused in marinara and a penne pasta drenched in a creamy basil coating.

Underneath a dimly lit lamp, his eyes cast avert shadows over the pages of his book, a detailed story of a man who dresses up like a woman to gain the favor of his queen's court as an admiral in the diplomacy sector, before the queen divorces her husband in newfound love for the man, who then breaks it to her that the she is actually a he and the queen still falls in love with him despite that. He is sick and tired of the droll pages that detail slovenly built huts and a running river by one of the eastside towns of the kingdom the book takes place in, trying to understand it's relevancy to the plot. His blue hair is a cap of electric raspberries shielding him from gnats and flies that are buzzing around the light bulb.

Everyone else is asleep down on the lower floors somewhere, and he knows that Ike, Pit, and Shulk with their respective AI units are snoring their heads off in cozy little cots while Marth's mind plagues him with injuries from Oklahoma, as he can never sleep anymore because of that day. He needs a good book to calm him down, but since the library was all the way on the ninth floor of headquarters, Marth is too lazy to slug up the steps with a blanket in the lucid darkness for a book that he wouldn't be able to read the book spine due to the black. The leader of Beta Squad picks the book off of the floor near Shulk's bedside, trudged into the elevator, and up he went. That is at around midnight after everyone said good night, and now it was nearing four in the morning, a very hazy peal of sunshine poking over the bleak and opaque horizon. Marth wonders where the track of time went, but decides to not dwell on it. After all, his mind is already suffering at the hands of this godawful book.

The sound of an elevator door opening hits his ears and he's immediately on alert. Marth tenses somewhat, trying to act a little bit more relaxed in his manner by propping one leg up on the table, the book obscuring his vision from the elevator doors. It pings with a gentle music note that causes Marth's heart to flutter, but his eyes stay focused on the blending lines of black ink and white pages.

Heavy footfall clomps down the tile floor over to him, and a familiar wave of cobalt hair pokes over the top of his book. Marth looks up to see the arms crossed figure of Ike Forgenson, and the man isn't necessarily angry as he is annoyed.

"Please tell me you're not doing what I think you're doing," Ike says, arms still folded, expression stoic. His cobalt hair is messy, like a tsunami wave throwing poor sea creatures onto a dilapidated beach.

"Reading," Marth answers calmly, flipping to the next page, his thumb running all the way up to the top of the page and sliding off, the commander half expecting a paper cut. He is sorely disappointed when nothing happens and all he's given is a slight sting of the cold air. "I'm told it is very relaxing for the soul and the mind. Perhaps you should pick up a book every once in awhile and enlighten yourself to what you may find in them." he flits his eyes over at his best friend, demanding a response.

"You should be asleep, Marth," the other blue haired man nibbles on his lower lip.

"Same can be said to you. Don't be a hypocrite."

"I'd figure you'd say that," Ike runs a hand through his hair, ceasing the lip biting. The two men sit in a lulled period of silence, save for the buzzing of flies and gnats and moths in the halcyon daze above, the tiled floor is silent. The bulkier of the two begins to tap his foot, most definitely trying to get Marth's attention, the echo of a socked foot reverberating along the walls like a gunshot without the severity of death. "You're very predictable," he comments, continuing the bombardment of heel to tile grit. This continues for about a minute until Marth's hands begin to twitch in frustration, perhaps to curve around Ike's bulging neck.

Marth slams the book down onto the table, spine first so the clap is thunderous, eyes ablaze. "Ike! Would you mind?"

"Not unless you go back to bed," Ike begrudges.

"Not on your life," Marth mutters.

"Why are you awake?"

"What do you think?"

"Can't sleep?"

"No. I can't," Marth groans, running a hand across the back of his neck. "I've been up since we all said goodnight. At first it was just a way for me to be able to shut my eyes, and then it turned into where I now am engrossed in this absolutely deplorable novel."

Ike pulls the second chair from the table out and sits across from his best friend. "Well, what's been bothering you?"

His friend looks over at him with a look that is as dark and icy as the coldest winds of Alaska, tongue tisking in all the right places, head dipped down just enough where he looks disappointed. "Ike..." he chides. Now is not the time.

"Oklahoma City?" Ike guesses out of his ass, but truthfully there was only like one another answer it could've been presumably been and he never likes being wrong.

Marth nods solemnly, and he feels like there's a million insects crawling all over his skin, biting him, making him swear against the holy book, his family, and so much more. He closes his eyes, pressing his fingers on his eyelids. It's with this movement that Marth realizes that he's shaking, all due to someone mentioning a place. It isn't as if Oklahoma City has stood up and walked directly into the Syrenet dining room! Marth opens his eyes, body still shaking slightly. "Just... just that entire day replaying over and over again. I nearly lost my leg because of a grenade. Had we just been that much more observant and patient, we wouldn't be some of the only ones left alive from that ordeal!" he's shouting now, the commander having flung himself away from the table, hands curled up into fists.

Ike looks down at the floor. "It isn't your fault for what happened. And you know that Corrin isn't going to send you back there again, she's a smart woman. We failed there and we have to move on."

"But who isn't to say that there'll be another one like that in another city we go to!" Marth cries, gesturing his hands wide as if they were to encapsulate the whole nation from sea to shining sea. "There may be an attack in Boise, or Orlando, or Atlanta from rebels against Syrenet and we're not there to go and save our comrades! Or, better yet, we're there and we're under fire..." his voice gets soft to a level he never even knew what was accessible before, almost sobbing at the breaking of his words. "I'm afraid of dying out there, Ike, and nothing we'll do will ever change that."

His best friend gets up, and Marth immediately backs up, afraid of being hit. Ike Forgenson compared to Marth Lowell is quite the size difference from muscles to simple draw of his arm to punch someone. Although he isn't afraid of his best friend, he cannot help but feel partially threatened. Ike gets in close to Marth and hugs him tight. No words, no gestures other than his arms wrapping around Marth in a bear hug. Marth is caught off guard, but hugs back.

When they break apart, Marth can see an entire history in Ike's reflective eyes, emotion that he's never read before, and though he knows it isn't one of love as a boyfriend or husband or anything of the sort; it is one of family and siblinghood. A rose, a tar ocean, a casket of gold, a bouquet of violet petals, a hailstone, a curl of blonde hair, and a rusted nail all flash between the two men and Marth seems to pull all of those things together into one agglomeration that he can't spell other than a timeline of Ike's life that he'll never share through common tongue, but passing gazes.

They stand still for a few more moments, Ike then clasping Marth on the shoulder. Like old times sake. "Come on, you got to go back to bed. Corrin is actually going to be requesting you for some decisions on how to handle a possible operation in Sacramento," Marth begins to babble again about the inconsistencies and failures and blood, but Ike puts a firm finger against his best friend's lips to keep him quiet, noticing how cold Marth's skin actually is, perhaps from a constant fear of something that he cannot understand. "She is not sending you out into the field for something like that unless it is absolutely necessary. You're still one of the best damn fighters we've got, Marth, whether you like it or not and lord knows I'm not letting you incapacitate yourself further because of that. I need someone to talk to after all, and Shulk or Pit being by my side twenty-four seven is not ideal."

Marth snickers, and Ike slugs an arm over his back as they walk towards the elevator together, joking. The compound is quiet once more, and Marth looks back at the table and the book, realizing he left the light on. Eh, he'll get it later in the day. The two ride down back to their floor together, silent save for some chitchat about the weather, which is always a great one to start up again.

Ike lets Marth out first before typing in a numbered code that kept the elevator locked till the morning in case of unwanted visitors who couldn't touch the heart of Syrenet. They both step into the room where Roy was once waiting several days ago, and they freeze. The temperature conniption still has yet to be fixed. Marth cranes his neck somewhat, swearing he hears the sound of broken glass, someone screaming in terror, someone else screaming in anger.

"Do you hear that?" Marth asks Ike.

The cobalt haired man nods back, patting around his waistband. "Dammit," he swears. "Left my gun inside, by my bed. Looks like we may have to use our fists."

Then, an ear piercing scream breaks the façade, and it makes Marth's blood run cold. _Shulk._ "Shulk!" the commander of Beta Squad cries, lunging for the door. He pulls on the knob, falling back as his hands fall from it, his own now slick with a coppery substance. Blood. "It's locked!"

That doesn't scare Ike, and he barges forward, slamming all of his body weight against the door. It falls in two quick bombardments, and then the two men scramble into the room.

Their bedroom isn't much in a state of awry matters except for the center. Pit is trembling over by the corner, a deep gash on his elbow and one across his face from his right ear down to the jaw. Over by him were several over turned AI Unit disks, Lucas's actually turned on, the blonde crying and muttering insensible things, and next to that, a shattered vase. Marth and Ike then notice the hunched over figure in the center of the room, radiant blonde hair as bright as the sun.

"Shulk?" Marth timidly says his superior's name, opening he'd look up.

Shulk does just that, and Ike takes a step back, perturbed. The commander of Syrenet's operation's eyes are wide, his blonde hair a mess, and his hands trembling. He's covered in blood, down to the crimson stained pajama pants to his hands which have no resemblance of any pale skin whatsoever. Marth can only stare on in horror, a hand going up to his mouth.

So much blood. There's so much blood and Ike isn't sure who it even belongs to, as Shulk doesn't appear to be injured and Pit's the only one sleeping with them, and it surely cannot be all his blood. Surely, right? Ike is not so sure anymore.

Shulk takes one step forward, wavering.

"He- help me..." he croaks, before his eyes roll into the back of his head, the commander dropping like a sack of rocks to the tiled floor.

* * *

 **And there we are ladies and gentlemen! That was Chapter #6: Lucid Operations, of Syrenet, and that very well might be the best chapter I've ever written for this story, and perhaps even overall if I can be so bold. Taking three week breaks don't seem as detrimental as they may appear to be, hmm... Now clearly, there are things to address, but I sure to the lord hope I confused and scared you all with this or otherwise I didn't do my job. A couple of things. What do you think happened to Roy? I can't give you specifics or details of any kind that might spoil some stuff, but things aren't good. How about Link and Corrin's conversations? Is there something going on that you all don't know about yet... or what? With Ike's lines of history in his eyes, what do you think that's about? Things to come or things that have already happened? AND, of course, perhaps the worst thing of all, what is going on with our man Shulk? I hope this has been an explosive chapter and worth the wait as I really wanted it to be. Game of Thrones is starting to influence me with dialogue which may or may not be a good thing. Please review! I'd love to see what you all thought about this diorama of events, and I'll make sure to respond. If you think things have just gotten worse, you haven't seen what's to come. I hope to see you all sometime this weekend perhaps with Chapter #7: Foraging Harvest. Love you all so much! Thanks for reading! Have a great day! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	7. Chapter 7: Foraging Harvest

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, #7: Foraging Harvest. Last one surely had its ups and downs, with characters collapsing and whatnot. I want to say thank you to those who struggled through it as our adventure shall only get more calamitous from here on out. I think that there'll be more chapters in the 4k range than the 6k range, but I'll most certainly try. Review replies!**

 **Solar Energy07- I'm very well honored to read that. Gee, you have no possible preconception of how awesome and kind of you that was to even remotely say that. Ah, you're so ever curious on seeing what Smashers fill what roles. I assure you that not every Smasher is a character, and even more so to add the mystery, there's more than a rebel, a member of the Collins group, or someone in Syrenet as the makeup of this cast of characters, you'll see soon enough. Hope this chapter suffices!**

 **Smash King24- Thank you so very much for reading and reviewing like I had asked, it meant a lot to me. Yep... this sure as heck is trying it's very hardest. I'm trying to mature my writing by making the most out of what I can do as a writer by exploiting locations and as the characters evolve, so do their environments. Along with maturity means I need to indeed be darker, and there's no lack of it in this story which will contain murder, deceit, fraud, and so much more. Of course, in Rated T boundaries. The sci-fi element is a little bit harder as there's no flying cars or teleportation, not even the sci-fi fantasy elements we see in Marvel movies... but akin to like the Industrial Revolution in America, what that did to industry. And yes, the famous, 'how's the weather'. Included it simply for an effect that Marth and Ike talked about nightmares and death to switch to the weather, a shift intentional in tone.**

 **CrashGuy01- I hope this chapter answers both your questions about Shulk and Roy. I had planned for an additional scene in this chapter dealing with Corrin (usually three per chapter, but I felt compelled to only keep these two) I am beyond delighted to know that this story has you hooked beyond measure, I hope to continue increasing this as we go on and have my craft be extended to something I never knew which was possible. Thanks for your words!**

 **I hope you all enjoy the chapter, Chapter #7: Foraging Harvest.**

* * *

The wine sits groggily in Roy's belly from the dinner the night before as his worn out sneakers touch the asphalt soil of the Collins compound in Boston, about twenty minutes out from the city. A ray of sunshine hits his head and he downs himself to one knee, growling into the gravel. The pain festers in his stomach once more, daring to lurch and vomit outward. Last night is a fractured blur to him, as all the redhead remembers is heaving up his dinner on the floor of his already disgusting apartment and going unconscious, waking up to a smiling blonde face that he does not recognize, and then vanishing into the transpires of shadow as if nothing had happened.

His phone buzzes off like a madman from Link's incessant calls - demands, rather, since Link Collins does not appear to be a rational man - to appear at the factory by 10 AM sharp, no later than the hour, and no earlier. When Roy comes to, he's sitting a pool of blood which had to have come from his mouth with the remnants of last night's dinner pooled about him, stinking of alfredo and mushrooms that turns his nose up. There were no signs of other bodily harm or injury, actually Roy felt quite alright and everything functioned. Except for the blood on the tiled floor, of course.

Roy shakily dresses himself, taping another log describing the strange events of the hours beforehand, says goodbye to Ness who smarmily replies that he hopes Link doesn't completely cleave him in two, which to the Syrenet operative said several colorful expletives and flipped a few obscene gestures to make his point. He hails a taxi from his hotel room, pays the driver handsomely, and says that he'll find a different form of transportation on the way back. He needs to start a pay roll service for that taxi driver, Roy deduces as he watches the blazing cardinal headlights vanish in a peal of smoke and the crap from the road.

Snake is texting him too, as he gained intel during the night that Link Collins plans to meet with an executive who wishes to talk about business, nothing more, nothing less, but in context, for Link Collins, business could mean a good multitude of things that the FBI boss does not simply want to mull over at this time. He says that Corrin requires his attention the entire day on important D.C matters via a Skype call and constant emails which means that Roy's only true ally in the northern front of Massachusetts is abandoning him. Roy, as he shakily walks past the gated entrance to the weapons facility, sticks a new tapped adhesive that lets him talk to his AI Unit on the underside of his wrist, subconsciously pulling down the sleeves of his sweater. A cold, drafty chill blows through the vicinity, and Roy Arcadia from Alpha Squad of Syrenet most desperately misses Washington.

The iron wrung gates of the compound are stark and black like the hearts of the men who open them, which Roy notices as he walks by, do not smile nor do they repeat his greeting of good morning. Roy's feeling less welcomed by the very minute second, and this time he doesn't get Shulk's snappy repertoire to help be his backup. A few smokestacks billow gray plumage and waste into the somewhat azure sky like volcanoes spreading their death of ash and pyroclastic material from an eruption akin to the one covering Pompeii.

Roy wonders about his friends, if he can even call them such a word, in D.C, on how they're doing, how they're holding up without him. " _Probably just fine,"_ he snarks to himself, feeling quite pitied. A man can only be as good as the words he says, his father once told him at dinner when his parents argued over which potato went with which pasta. The redhead dreams of a time when those days were not filled with him running out of the house and finding his brooklet to cry in, simply because he did not understand why his parents fought so viciously over food choices. It is not till he is much older, years later, that the realization sits in where, if he replaced potatoes will how much money his parents earned, and pasta to bills, that his parents fought so spitefully and vilely over bills and the economic foundation of the Arcadia family. It's no surprise to any of Roy's family members that his parents split when he was only nine or so, little under a year when his mom found a job that actually suited her.

He feels tears streaming down his cheeks as he's stopped on the cobblestone path from the gate to the main building in the compound. Roy bats away at them like a gardener protecting his crops from locusts which only cause him to cry harder. He's not going to be able to stem the emotion. Despite his horrific tendencies at being unable to not keep his feelings out of sight, it was his ability in battle, and with a tongue, and with a gun that got Roy Arcadia where he was today, and it is something his family has never let him forget. Painful bruises at one point used to linger around Roy's ankles from tripping and falling in the morning due to the academy's constant runs - runs that Roy could never finish as his stamina never came from tiring out the muscles in his legs, but those in his arms. Fist fighting especially.

The redhead hears a sharp whistle, as Roy's been standing in the middle of God's nowhere on the cobblestone path. He looks up, hand frozen at swiping another tear away to see Link Collins, trouped by at least six other men, jollily prancing towards him. Roy cannot believe his eyes, as the blonde arms dealer is _literally_ prancing to him, a skip on a stone there, a wide outstretch of his hands here to welcome the redhead.

"I hope it isn't too dreary," Link comments, stopping at Roy's side, smiling. "I asked the janitors to repaint the welding chambers and the florists to buy new flowers, but there wasn't enough money in our budget to afford such a... 'project'," the blonde puts air quotes around the word project, causing Roy to raise an eyebrow at the sincerity of the man's words. "Nevertheless, I still am the owner of Collins Enterprise and these grounds are much better than any company overseas."

He turns and beckons with a finger to signal that Roy should follow. The redhead hastens his step. Roy bites his lip. He must tell Link of what happened yesterday. Either the Syrenet soldier had contact with food poisoning or a virus, or something much more serious, an actual attempt of being poisoned. He cannot possibly think of who else besides Shulk, Snake, Corrin and the other Syrenet operatives that would know of the mission, nor what one would gain by poisoning some random affiliate of Link Collins. "Link, there's something I should tell you-"

Link steps through the doors of one of the open aired spaces where the guns are made, his hands lacing the mirrors on the doors. He juts his jaw out to the right, eyes glimmering. "Yes?"

Roy suddenly doesn't know how to speak, breath stuttering and lips feeling dryer than usual. "Last night... I- I was watching TV and when I went to go to bed, something caused me to fall unconscious and vomit up blood. I awoke feeling just fine, but whatever happened to me I cannot explain. Anything unusual happen to you?"

The blonde looks at the other men gathered, his lackeys or something such or other and breaks into a laughter. _Laughter._ Roy's eyes flare up as Link places his hands on his knees, howling out to the wind and soon the others chuckle as well. "I was wondering when that would happen. I expected it to happen in the van ride while you were going home with me, but I must've given you a smaller dose than I originally thought."

The redhead takes a step back, hands searching around his waist for a weapon when he realizes that he left everything in the hotel room. He's a downright bloody idiot. Roy looks at Link nonplussed, eyebrows knit together. "What?" There's no other word in the dictionary to explain his confusion.

Link looks around as if someone's done some vile crime, like murder, before scoffing. "If you think I trusted you, Mr. Arcadia, no questions asked, then you're much more of an idiot than I thought. I simply had a chef on my payroll in the restaurant's kitchen give you three drops of a poison into your linguini pasta dish before our waitress brought it out. There's a reason why I only have my dinners there, Roy, in essence to hide my assets. Generally, the person in contact with the drug succumbs within two hours top, which happens when I personally wish to ride home with them. They spill all these secrets and I find out that they weren't who they said they were..." At the blonde's words, Roy's throat seized up. Did he say something regarding Syrenet in his ramblings? Is Link going to kill him on the spot? He never thought of that possibility. "Though I wish there were more times when the party in question did not have anything to hide, as that has happened once or twice, but a man often keeps his secrets underneath his tongue."

Roy regards the arms dealer with a look that he can only hope and pray is one that does not show weakness. "And? What did you discover about me?"

Link smiles back, patting the redhead on the shoulder with a warm touch. "Nothing of worry, Roy. I may be a shifty man at times, as the business of weapons dealing is an affair of shady characters, but there's something I do not do. I do not lie, as I make sure my tracks are covered well enough where, if I have to reserve to lying to keep my head on my shoulders, I've done a bad job at playing the game right. What you did say _was_ embarrassing to my ears, but my stories are far worse, Mr. Arcadia. Now, do you wish to see the compound or get straight to it where you see the weapons and ogle at them?"

The redhead opens his mouth to respond when the sound of someone walking up behind them disrupts the conversation. Link looks over, another smile lacing his lips. A woman, much skinner than any man around Roy, replaces the void of the empty sky and stone. The blonde steps up to Roy's side, straightening his back even further than before. "Midna? What do you need?"

Midna is perhaps the most gorgeous lady Roy's eyes have ever crossed in his life. Her skin tone is dark and fair, a precious shade of olive with flecked hazel eyes that peal out of a cloak of ruby hair, sending shivers down the Syrenet soldier's back. She stands pretty tall for a woman, Roy notes, a knife holstered at her hip, hands at her waist. She speaks and nothing has sounded more sweet to Roy's ears than honeysuckle drowning in velvet, which would be the most accurate description of her voice which he could provide.

"Your appointment has arrived, Mr. Collins," she says, gesturing behind her with a thumb.

Link closes his eyes, nods, and shoulders to the men around him. The blonde turns to Roy, making a frown. "I'm sorry Roy, forgive me, but I forgot that I had scheduled an appointment with a client this morning. I have so much going on in my head that it's hard to keep track of things. This'll take an hour, tops. If you'd like, I can have Midna escort you around the compound."

Midna eyes Roy with peculiarity, and he catches the glean of an emotion in her eye. Lust? Regret? Pride? Admiration? He cannot tell, and it bothers him like a stinging slap across his face. "I don't know if he'd like that Link, he's looking at me moreso for my looks than my _company_ , so to speak."

"Is he now?" Link guffaws. He beckons back at Roy. "She's a lovely box of sunshine, isn't she? Midna can see through anyone if you give her enough time. Would you prefer to be alone?"

"Yes..." Roy says at length. "If that's alright."

"More than enough."

Midna smirks, crossing her arms over her chest, expertly hiding her front which Roy minds himself was scantily clad, and he's sure she knows it and does it for a reason. "Well, then, Mr. Collins, it'd be quite rude to leave your guests hanging so long? Wasn't it you who said that you don't lie? Lying about the time of a conference meet seems to cross that border."

Link's eyes flare up akin to supernovas in the black sky of space, but he settles for a grin that is painful even for a man like to him to settle. "Of course, Midna. Roy, I'll be back in an hour. Don't get lost and please don't try to kill yourself while you're at it."

He jogs down the cobblestone path, Midna and the rest of his lackeys at his heels. Roy watches for a moment, standing precariously and awkwardly in the doorway, unsure of what to do. Roy Arcadia has two options, simple enough, and he's not sure if he can make them. Either of them, to be honest. He taps the device underneath his wrist.

" _Yes?"_ comes Ness's voice.

" _You heard what just happened?"_

 _"Quite_." Ness's tone is that of boredom, and Roy can only imagine the AI Unit observing all of this with a toothpick in between his teeth in his sheltered hubble of a technological world.

" _And what should I do?"_

 _"Snake mentioned, as did Shulk, that Link was to make an appointment sometime during your stay. Though neither of them specified on what day the meeting would be, gut feeling says that this is it. You won't get a better chance to assure Corrin's thoughts than by seeing what they're discussing. I'm right here, in your head, seeing through your eyes too, Roy. If you give me the order, I can get Snake or Shulk, and even madam Corrin on the line if it's that urgent. You in?_ "

Roy cracks his neck, feeling a surge of bravery. "More than ready, actually." He looks behind himself like a trapped alley cat, before racing after the weapons dealer.

* * *

Shulk winces away as the bright light flashed from eye to eye, the flashlight placed between Ike's stubby fingers, his face that of concern. The bluenette follows his superior's gaze, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Upstairs, on the second basement floor, the two can hear sounds of Pit's newest Syrenet suit inventions duking it out. Ike drops the light, sighing contently.

The blonde feels like a two year-old again sitting on his mother's lap at the doctor's office as they performed all sort of cognitive tests and optical scenarios to train his eyes for a presumable military background. Even then, at such a young age, the prospect is that Shulk Roberts is to become a working, running, killing machine. "I'm fine, Ike. You don't have to do this."

"You lost quite the amount of blood, Shulk," Ike says, dropping the light, the brightness disappearing from Shulk's vision. "Protocol states, written and approved by Corrin and all the senators, that any in command Syrenet officers who sustain life threatening injuries of the sort and other cases require requisite cranial nerve exams. What do you think would happen if Corrin finds out that you went crazy and no one here at the complex did what was procedural? She'd have our heads on spikes!"

"I didn't go crazy," Shulk hisses through gritted teeth, gripping Ike's wrist. "You saying that _makes_ me want to go crazy, however."

"Then what would you call it?" the bluenette demands, rising to one knee, head titled somewhat to the left. "Marth and I are enjoying a pleasurable conversation upstairs and we come down here to yelling. We burst in, you're covered in blood despite not having any wounds, and when I say covered Shulk, I mean drenched and drowning in scarlet. Pit's injured, cowering away from you in the corner, and Lucas is somehow awake and sobbing. You get up when we gently prodded you, croaking out that Marth and I were to help you, and then collapsed," Ike went through the details of the evening before, causing Shulk to wince. "You sound _completely_ sane, Mr. Roberts. Is there anything I'm forgetting?"

He holds up two hands a good distance from Shulk's face. The blonde sighs. "Really?"

"Procedure," Ike smartly replies. "Cover your left eye. How many fingers am I holding up?" His right hand shifts to hold up a finger.

The blonde sighs, realizing that he's not getting out of this any time soon. "One," Shift of hand. "Four," Shift of hand. "Two," Shift of hand. "Six," Shift of hand. "One again..."

Ike lowers his hands, giving another look over at his superior. "You're optical nerve works fine. How's your throat?"

"On fire like I had spent the night screaming at the heavens to give me something I cannot get back," Shulk answers.

"Oh? And what's that?"

The life is gone from Shulk's answer, eyelids drooping like an alcoholic except that he's not had anything to drink. "Fiora..." he responds, looking at his hands.

Ike freezes, having put the flashlight back in the medical kit, then depositing the medical kit above the blonde's head. He lowers his gaze to the floor before standing up, going to the refrigerator in the corner. "Fiora..." he says sadly. "You still haven't gotten over your wife's death, have you?" The bluenette winces as he asks the question. That definitely is not his best moment.

"No. Nor do I expect that I will any time soon, Ike," Shulk snaps.

"Beer?"

"A water."

"My pleasure..." Ike mulls over the choices in the fridge, taking a Coolers Light, tossing a bottle behind him which Shulk caught with much ease. The bluenette opens the can, takes a swig, slams the refrigerator shut, turns to face the blonde, and crosses his arms over his chest, the beer resting on the counter. "Now, I'm going to ask you this only once, and you have to be honest with me or I'll go straight to Corrin and say you've gone mad. She'll have you thrown out of here like a deranged dog to the streets. What happened last night?"

Shulk crushes the water bottle in his hands at the prompting of the question, crystalline liquid spilling over the cap and onto his legs. The cold feel of the water reminds him of long summers where he and Fiora spent together at the beach, mulling over what they'd call their children, or short winters where melted snow slid down his back like slush as he kissed her in an open field under the fire of a snowstorm. He breaks concentration, throat burning from the apparent action of screaming. Pit's reminded him nearly forty times in the morning that he wouldn't stop screaming, no matter what it was. The screaming is what turned Lucas's programming on, leaving the artificial piece of intelligence purely scared and freaked out beyond belief. Shulk's heart sinks. That's two times in three days that he's awoken the piece of programming out of a slumber in fright.

"She visited me in my dreams again, Fiora did..." Shulk answers, looking at Ike dead in the eyes, the gaze so disturbing that it stirs the bluenette away from the counter, to guzzle another long sip of the beer so he can listen to the story without having to face the blackness head on. "I can remember her laugh, her voice, her touch on my back as if it was only yesterday, Ike. Her still golden hair like the rows of grain out in some stupid Kansas field..." he takes a swig of water. "Fiora is in my dreams a lot, actually. I dreamt of her three days ago, where I bought her flowers and my house exploded. I know it was only a dream, Ike, but it felt so wholly real that I'm unsure whether or not I truly had been sleeping. I watched her burn in front of my eyes. Her skin fell off like paper mache and turned to singes of ash that flowed around. The flowers in my hand were torched, my face wet with tears but I stood there and did nothing! Nothing! Fiora died in front of me and I did nothing!" he screams this, the surge of anger flowing through his bones and riveting out like wildfire. "Last night's dream was no different. A nightmare, more than anything, Ike. She came to me, dressed like a woman who offers you that one thing we can't ever completely run away from, and I'm not in the mood to spell it out. That reminded me of the golden days, those days when I wanted a child, when _we_ wanted kids and we couldn't get them. However, this nightmare felt different. Too different. She leaned in to kiss me, like I expected, but then her lips never grazed me as she insulted me. Fiora insulted everything about me that's there to insult! My name, my honor, herself, our non-existent family... and I sat there and took it. I... I did absolutely nothing! There's a running theme in all of this isn't there? Next thing I know, I'm up and about, clawing at the bed. I don't know where the blood came from... perhaps internally. I vomited something up, dinner maybe. This snaps Pit awake and he tries calming me down. I slammed the lamp by his bedside against his head because I needed to be left alone and me telling him that did nothing!" Shulk stands up, face in a snarl and barbaric. "So, when you say that you want to go to Corrin and call me a psychopath... go ahead and do it then! Let her see the horrific monster in her ranks and let her do what she wants, Mr. Forgenson!"

He's done with his rant, his horrific spiel... and Shulk collapses back onto the bed, sobbing into his hands. Each cry is more painful than the last, a fell stinger that stiches and stiches but never actually clots up the blood, it sits there as a painful reminder for why he doesn't have any family, why he'll never have a legacy to live onto, just like the very one Fiora in his dreams insulted.

Ike finishes his beer, making sure not to crush it or throw it from where he's standing into the trash can. Shulk bends over, still crying, a unanimous wail of pain and desperation echoing along the halls. The bluenette walks over, patting Shulk on the back. The blonde's hands grapple at the taller man's arms, pulling him down and then holding him in a hug.

The embrace catches Ike off guard, a choke catching in his throat.

Shulk's tears dampen Ike's jacket. "Please... don't tell Corrin what happened."

Ike smiles down on Shulk's form. "Don't worry, Shulk. I won't. I promise."

The two sit there as the blonde continues to cry, not realizing that behind a wall, Marth stands, frozen as the sounds of the whole ordeal wash over him. The commander of Beta Squad swallows his fear, and exits to the elevator.

Something must be done.

Doesn't necessarily mean that President Corrin Etch has to be involved.

* * *

 **... Ooh, what is our dear Marth Lowell, commander of Beta Squad, going to do exactly? Only time will tell, ladies and gentlemen. There we are though, Chapter #7: Foraging Harvest. My additional scene was meant to be between Corrin and Robin about adding someone into their secret service, but I've found a different place to put it so there'll be a scene there. We'll get to see more of Lucas and Ness too, whom I know so many readers are just dying to see again (be honest, are you?) Next chapter, some stuff will hit the fan and onwards to reaching double digit chapters with Syrenet. Please review and let me know what you thought! Greatly appreciated! I hope to see you all again with Chapter #8: Rebel Dealings, but this is where I tempt you? Is Link dealing with rebels... or someone else? Let that sink in. Have an amazing day! I love you all so much! Love you! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm of Writing**


	8. Chapter 8: Rebel Dealings

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, #8: Rebel Dealings. I've been very excited for this chapter for quite some time and the many that will follow as it only goes to show where this story will go. We get to see a few characters we haven't seen in awhile, which I am and I know a lot of you will be happy to see. Again, I pose this question, who does this rebel dealing apply to? Link? Corrin? Someone else entirely, perhaps? Or maybe it is a different type of rebel than that of what many suspect? Only time will tell ladies and gentlemen, eh? Review replies!**

 **Ike4ever- I'm glad you liked the reasons for Roy being a part of the FBI. I try writing my heroes where they aren't these impossibly strong characters but I try my hardest to make sure they're likable while not being weak. And good with the third person omniscient, that's why I like it a whole lot more than first person (I feel trapped in a box), and then with third person past tense, again there's the issue of show and tell, but with third person past tense, you've got beyond more wiggle room as why I feel like my writing is so much better in stories like this, such as Native... and some other Rated M pieces I have written. Link sees everything lol. You don't like Midna now, I reckon you might not, but you'll learn to trust her, my friend. I am hoping to do Ike justice where when we see his fighting ability it is almost so contrasting to the heart that he has. Lucas is so adorable. That's perhaps why he's my favorite Smash character to write.**

 **Mr. Squirtle6- I admit that the description of 'honeysuckle drowning in velvet' was perhaps too prosy even for me, but I do admit it made my mouth water and my nose long for a smell of that lol. I love storytelling, as if you were to see me in person I use my hands and look very much alive; I take your compliment with a whole hearted thank you as being your favorite writer out of the millions possibly who have their work on here is downright unbelievable and something I cannot express enough gratitude for. It's okay man, if you don't review. Of course it helps to see your comments and advice and predictions, but I can always PM you for those if need be. Enjoy!**

 **Thank you two for reviewing. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #8: Rebel Dealings.**

* * *

The sound of light banter flows over Marth's ears as he sits across from vice president Robin Wyndel of the United States, arms wrapped around the sides of the chair currently seated at a yard's length from the second most powerful person in the country. Robin eyes the bluenette warily, bringing the glass of wine to her lips, perfect, pearly, plump, Marth's own lips missed the savoring taste of the black drink as he opts for a simplistic and almost unsatisfactory cup of water and a ginger ale. She breaks into a smile, placing the glass back on the table, plates of food mounted between them. Marth smirks back at her, dressed neatly in a button down, freshly shaven face, new dress shoes among other things such as the gleaming bronze watch placed on his wrist. Robin is clad in a jacket, snowstorm silver akin to her hair which blows around her stark and pale face every few seconds from the fan above the duo blowing northern gusts and gales of wind their way.

Marth tips the ginger ale back and swishes it around, absorbing the light soda into his gums and the bitterness that washes over. She leans back, tapping her fingers against the arms of her chair, before clearing her throat.

"I apologize if this comes across as rude..." Robin picks her words very carefully, sitting up, hand going to her neck. Marth looks past the flesh and sees a golden cross hung around, hanging upward from her breast a few inches, resting against the fabric of the coat. "But, generally Syrenet commanders have no reason to speak to me. I take it Corrin was busy when you wished-"

"I preferred that this conversation would not be with the madam president, Miss Wyndel," Marth interrupts gracefully, where he does it in such a way that wasn't necessarily rude, but abrupt with a softer tone, like a gentle rain on a rickety, wooden wall of a dilapidated shed. He normally is not inclined to interrupt authority in such a manner, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Robin's lips press together wryly, her hands now seizing the glass of wine than the pendant around her neck. "Oh," and then a slight pause. "Why not?"

"Answers I'll get to sooner than later," the commander of Beta Squad bows his head, sidestepping the question. His fingers run around the rim of his water glass, prickling at the feeling of cold and chilled nights where he remembers days and months at a time being spent dodging security guards and breaking into drug cartel lord's houses for the sake of the country. "I found out recently that Senator Gladwell wishes to have a dinner with Syrenet and some other government officials next week here in D.C?"

The vice president's eyebrows lift at this information. "You'd be right in those standings, Mr. Lowell. I do know that Cloud himself personally requested Shulk to be there. Why? I cannot give you a straight answer to that, only a guess. Are you upset that you weren't invited?"

"Not at all," Marth says modestly. "Public scenes have never been my forte, Miss Wyndel."

"And they aren't Shulk's," Robin comments. "Yet Cloud wants him there all the same."

At the mentioning of the blonde haired man, Marth's face darkens, eyes brazing downwards to inspect the field mats and the carpet in which the two ate and drank. Robin observes this change, tipping her neck upwards, the sound of the cross jangling and hitting the table. "Have you always been a religious woman, Miss Wyndel?"

"You wanted to talk to me about Shulk, didn't you?" the silverette evades the question as a soldier would sidestepping a deftly placed blow.

Marth tightens his grip on the chair, stirring uncomfortably. "Yes ma'am."

"Something the matter?"

The bluenette drinks to that, with his water and ginger ale so the custom feels partly lost, which he slyly reminds himself, taking a gulp of both glasses. "Something give it away?"

She doesn't bat an eye, with her expertise and all. "You tensed."

"Yes, then," Marth gives in despite there not really being a fight to be had. "I wish to talk about Shulk."

The vice president sits up, chair creaking against the tile. "I also heard your other question, Mr. Lowell. I take it that you noticed the cross around my neck," she takes a sip of wine, downing it and the red velvet liquid disappears behind the veiled curtain of white, the last leeches of fall's leaves being hidden by the wrathful and raging dire snow of a stark and belabors winter that attacks from the front, behind, and the sides. "My parents raised me to be Presbyterian, actually. It's been almost thirty years since then, Marth. I'm non-denomination now, as there is no reason to pick and choose my rules..." Robin tilts her head. "Though I can hardly imagine that there's meaning and reason behind you asking me, it has me curious. Why do you ask?"

"I just often wonder at times how a woman of faith can be in such a treacherous world of politics and power, Miss Wyndel," Marth answers bravely, hands clenching up, fingers releasing the tension of a thousand year sleep. "Given today's political climate, I've expected the country to devour you."

Robin's eyes flash a sterling silver, a steely sharpness often not detected in the gentle woman's eyes. "You make do, Mr. Lowell. I am benevolent at my heart. While I cannot certainly sit here and say I haven't done derelict actions, sometimes they're in the betterment of the country than God, and it doesn't make the pain of performing them any harder than it would've been if I wasn't faithful. How about you?"

He lets out a laugh, one that is curled upwards and outwards, spilling out like rotting fruit in woven bread baskets. It curdles like spoiled milk and stinks up the table, causing the vice president to twist her nose up in disgust that she tries hiding, but Marth places a hand against his belly while he tips over. The bluenette sits back up, wiping tears from his eyes. "Robin, a godly man could not be in the position that I have to occupy. Killing isn't easy."

"I never said it was."

"But-"

"The people of Israel were commanded by God," Robin says, sitting up, back straight against the chair, head set down the lane on Marth's slightly frazzled gaze, "to kill, whomever it was. If God said to his children to slay everyone in the city alive, they did it. If you were to open the Bible and read the book of Joshua, it describes how the army of Israel killed every living thing in a city named Jericho; man, woman, and child all fell against the sword. He didn't spare a single one, except someone faithful and generous. Men had qualms, Mr. Lowell, and those qualms did not disappear over night. You're starting to insult me, which isn't wise. I try to be better than Corrin and how she handles diplomatic affairs without cursing and silently threatening to kill you, but Marth, if I am being honest, even an angel's wings blacken at times. I am _not_ going to sit here and-"

"I think we're straying away from the point, vice president!" Marth snaps, feeling all sorts of uncomfortable about him. It is tight in the air, clinging to his skin like a straightjacket which gives him a little less breath every passing second. He hates letting himself get off track in such a catastrophic manner.

Robin's features soften impossibly, impeccably, almost perfectly in all manners of the word. She beckons over a waiter, giving him her glass. The vice president murmurs a few words into the waiter's ears, the man nodding and hastening off to the kitchen for a 'refill'. Robin's hands relax, her right going back to the cross, clutching it like a lifeline. "It's about Shulk isn't it?" and Marth breaks away his gaze. "What... what happened last night?"

Marth sighs, running a hand through his hair. "I was upstairs on the command floor reading as I couldn't sleep, and Ike came to get me. We spoke some, went back into the 'barracks', and we barged into the room after Ike knocked the door down which was locked because Shulk had been screaming his head off. He was covered in blood, injured Pit... it wasn't a pretty sight and I'll save you the details."

Her eyes flicker up, eyelashes batting once in savor of the moment. "And how is Shulk now?"

"It's the reason why I wished to speak with you," he admits. "I overheard Shulk and Ike talking while Ike was giving him the customary cranial nerve exam, and Shulk explained that he had a nightmare from his marriage with Fiora. Again, I'll save you the details, Miss Wyndel, but bottom line is that Shulk is hurting and I think he needs some time away from the compound," Robin sits up to say something, but he interrupts her once more, this time a little harsher. "Not on a mission, as that'll only make things worse."

"A getaway, then?" Robin asks.

Marth nods. "Yes. For Pit, Ike, Shulk, and myself," Originally it is not part of the commander's plan to include himself and the others in the delegation, but having Shulk all by himself in his current mental state is nothing less than worrisome. "Just for the weekend, some private little house on a lake. Roy returns from Boston on Saturday... it's Wednesday, and I think it'd be good if tomorrow we got to leave, deeper into Virginia, just to get Shulk's mind off of things. His nightmares have gotten a lot worse ever since Roy arrived."

"Do you think there's a correlation?"

"I hope not."

"Why, again, did you ask me for this, and not Corrin?" the silverette frowns, then smiling earnestly when the waiter crossed over handing her a new glass of wine.

The bluenette readies his answer by running a hand through his hair, downing the rest of the ginger ale, before giving the waiter his own glass. "If I told Corrin of Shulk's outbursts, especially those that have been violent, she'd be firing him every which way from Sunday. You know how she is, granted your her right-hand-man..." Marth frowns. "Or is it right-hand-woman since you're a-"

"Marth..." Robin groans into her hands.

He breaks off into a skittish smile. "Right, sorry... um, anyways..." he taps his fingers against the table. "Corrin would not be nice about this, even if Shulk is the very first person ever enlisted in the Syrenet program. I knew you'd be caring, at the very least sweeter than madam president would be over this."

"And why is that?"

"I assumed that because you're a Christian-"

"So now we're stereotyping me?" Robin tilts her head to the side, causing Marth to sweat as beads of glossy salt and water slide down his forehead.

"Robin-"

"I'm kidding," she assures, smiling. "Sometimes Mr. Gladwell uses this fishing cabin near a lake over by Norfolk as his resting spot when he wants to get away from Congress work or Corrin's nagging. Two miles away from the nearest town or city, all private land... you men would get some nice piece and quiet for the weekend."

Marth's grin widens, starry and bright. He stands so fast, jolting the table. Robin catches the table with one hand, the other saving the wine glass before it was to spill the glorious scarlet contents all over the carpet which would be beyond embarrassing. "Thank you, Miss Wyndel!"

"More than happy to help. Syrenet is often underwhelmed by the rest of the White House, but I've been secretly rooting for you guys and gals since Corrin signed the bill putting it into effect," the vice president goes to shake Marth's hand, but the bluenette has a different idea and throws his arms around her in a hug, smiling the entire time. She warmly embraces him back, patting him on the shoulder, before returning. "I imagine you'll be driving there?"

"Using a plane to go four hours somewhere in a car is kind of suspicious, Miss Wyndel," Marth chuckles.

Robin nods, sighing. "I hope the weekend does something good for you four."

"Me too," the bluenette agrees heartily. "The first thing I'll do when I get back to Syrenet headquarters is tell Shulk that he'll get a moment's break from that ravish hell..."

Her eyes glance on the table, the waiter putting a receipt down against the wine glass. Robin clucks her tongue. "So... Mr. Lowell, who gets the check?"

The two break into a peal of laughter, and the sky is joyous by their contentment.

* * *

Red drops welt up on Corrin's pointer finger as she swipes the manila folder placed on her desk from a paper cut. The globule splatters against the desk like a cup of tabasco sauce sizzling against a smoking tarmac road, black and red mixing in an onyx and cardinal dance. She curses, going to suck the blood off of her porcelain skin. Corrin grabs a tissue from the tissue box placed near the edge of her desk closest to the door, dabbing at the cut with a crumbled up tissue. She applies pressure to it, throwing her hair around akin to a horse shaking its mane.

She glances at the folder, then turning dismissively to the window and stares out of it, longing for a day when the sun did not shine so bright as it did. The halcyon rays almost distract her from the upmost important of work at times, when she's on an urgent business call with the prime minister of Britain, or trying to instigate a war between foreign powers in the rain lands of the Amazon. Her voice warps into the ceiling like twisted sinew and tar tendrils pulling at the dust particles, darkening the plaster and staining the rugs with copper stains. Corrin Etch rules the iron throne of the Oval Office with a grace not seen since the old days of the late 1960's-1990's. Her smile is as fake as the knife pressed to a diplomat or senator's neck, except her threat isn't as see-through. If your president, if _the_ president says you'll suffer, she'll see it through the ends of your days that she shall suffer.

On a table set against the far right wall is a collection of the trinkets and presents given to her over the course of her administration. An election - well, _the_ election - is nearing soon, thirteen months off, yet she needs to start thinking, she needs to start planning and there'll be nothing interesting with no usurper rising against her in the standings. Her political affiliation is non-descript, all she does is say that what she does is for the betterment of all the peoples: skin, sexual preference, race, religion, the list of human rights and human classifications go on and on that says underneath the black oath that she'll swear to protect and abide by is nothing more than a mere phantom word on her lips wisped out to the rickety and dried up walls of the White House. Democrat. Republican. Libertarian. Independent. Conservative. Liberal. Marxist. Communist... it's all bullshit. Robin sees through her, though, and Corrin dislikes it. Leave it to Robin Wyndel to see through the bull.

Corrin reads the first page of the file, and in bulbous letters, written in a scarlet pen as if that made it more official, it says, _Ordained by Vice President Robin Wyndel._ Her nose flares, and she rips the page from the file, crunching it up. Corrin's blood seethes with an unthinkable rage, one she dares not speak unless an animal in the night wishes to consume her. Her vice president is nothing compared to the true queen of America, that one true president, a spot so faithfully filled by Corrin Etch which she'll do till the end of eight years. Eight long and prosperous years, if she's lucky.

So the question still stands inside the president's mind. Why does her vice president get the responsibility of approving something without it being brought to her attention? Corrin goes to the next page, and there's a foreword typed out in some Times New Roman like font, and she knows it all too well that it is size twelve, double spaced, MLA format... general science papers that bore the silverette to no end. _An idea to be placed to madam president Corrin Etch if she finds it suiting. Due to the Syrenet employees having jobs elsewhere out of the capital, and with the last secret service leader retiring after tearing an ACL and injuring his back, the president needs a new man to guard her back._ Corrin smirks at the writing. She can protect herself just fine, the silverette knows this beyond anything else she's learned in her life. If her hands did not work, the same hands holding the gun or the doorknob, her words would tear through the enemy at just the right pace, at just the right angle where no one came out of her chambers alive, feeling like the same man.

The flick of the next page reveals the one candidate that the vice president wishes to place in her last man's stead. Corrin steps back from the photo, smiling almost cleverly, as if she is forgetting the halcyon band wrapped around her neck. A few stats are lined up against the man's portrait, written by someone's hand given the swoops of calligraphy which resemble that of Robin's, a name that lingers on Corrin's lips. "Mac Sarasota..." the president whispers to herself, glancing a finger over the picture provided. "What's your secret?" she tilts her head. Every man has a secret. Every woman has a secret. All humans on Earth have a secret, from the very first second they are out of their mother's womb into the world to the last moment on their deathbed, there's something they wish to say, something they wish to hear, and something they wish to see. Their eternal secret, one Corrin uncovers quicker than most.

She thought, once, long ago in times spent frolicking through sunflower fields and diving into crystalline pools, the silverette believed there lay her secret. Her eternal secret, she felt, though it did not last long, was to be the ruler of her own life. Every decision she makes decides her own fate, not someone else being her puppet master... and Corrin realizes now, especially now that it is too late, as she watched her father choke on his drink, she did nothing but watch him die as he denied her anything in his will. Corrin Etch lets her father die purely alone on the right that she was nowhere in his will, and even forced he did not put it in. She remembers his eyes that were never appraising, they were always boding, dark, slyly judging her as his tongue spoke the words out of the mouths of babes. " _You've grown to be a spiteful, vile woman, Corrin. I love you forever and always, as will your brother, as will your mother... but I cannot look at you with pride, my dear. You're officially revoked from the will until you clear your head and past, but pray you do it long before I am gone and not after when nothing given to you is a blank stare by your own good man._ "

Corrin still feels the boil of excitement in her blood as she watched the coffin of her deceased father be lay to rest in the local cemetery near her house. That, is not the president's eternal secret, however, and she does not know what it is and perhaps never will.

Her eyes snap back to Mr. Mac Sarasota, and she takes an immediate admiring to him despite having never heard him utter a word or sentence in her presence. Mac is short for a male, only 5'6, in the middle age of thirty-five, Corrin realizes she's eight years older than him and as white hair, an entire head of white hair... how sad. His hair is short and that of an olive black, like a military crew cut. Mac's resume is quite impressive, having a few boxing titles underneath his belt which cause the president to raise her eyebrows. Mac Sarasota does not need a gun or knife to do his talking, the fists or enough and she cannot wait to see his punches in earnest. His eyes are a solid blue, a coursed diamond, rich like a blueberry wine or blueberry vodka. A bulking form, Corrin _almost_ curses herself for being married. Cloud Gladwell is an honest man, so how he is married to a snake like Corrin Etch is beyond anyone's guess.

She closes the folder, shrugging.

"If Robin wants to play her little game of keeping me safe from a harm that does not exist, so be it," Corrin says to herself, returning to the window. "She can play it. That poor Mac, he'll last a year give or take, and then he'll be gone. Pity, he's got a nice face..."

The president crows to herself with a cackle, clasping her hands together before embracing a halo of light and fan dust.

* * *

Link Collins never has said once in his life that he's a man of good manners, which he exemplifies by picking his teeth with a toothpick in front of his business clientele. His client puts her hands on her hips, blonde hair tied back in a ponytail with so many knots that garlic knots look easy by comparison. Afar, though he cannot sense it, Roy Arcadia peeks out around a wall, eyes observing all mannerisms and sentences being said. Illusions go a long way in the business of diplomacy.

Midna stands beside the weapons dealer, eying the client with a sharp gaze, hazel eyes scanning and discerning the real, beauty details versus the fake and overtly designed ones. She is proud to say that she does not find any to be had. She clears her throat. "Link, I don't think it is... nice," it causes the redhead to wince as she hates using such general words when there are vastly better ones out there to use, "to let her waiting. She's traveled for almost two days by car without stopping to come here, as your business prospect was too appealing. And now you're going to respect her by picking your teeth?"

He eyes his right hand with a glare, breaking the toothpick in half, blood being drawn which causes Midna to suck in a quick breath. "Right. Excuse Midna's brashness, she means well. Business?"

His client smiles, and though Roy does not know who it is, he can sense a feeling of importance around her. If he is to spend a few hours to Ike Forgenson or Marth Lowell he'd come to learn that the very woman standing before Link Collins is no one other than Sheik Braring, the rebel leader of the Midwest. Sheik, dressed in a grey shawl and skirt, presses her hands together. The weather is slightly colder for her taste. Boston northern airs have never settled exactly right with her, as Sheik is a Midwestern girl through and through, and no emerald elf punk is going to change that fact. "Mr. Collins made it quite clear over the phone that this is what I was to expect. So, Miss Midna, I'm not surprised."

Link's eyes glisten. "Do you have payment?"

"Most certainly," Sheik's diamond eyes match the same intensity as the redhead's, her own lemonade whip of a hairstyle snapping in the harsh Bostonian winds and gusts. "My men could use the rocket launchers and the mortars to good purposes." She turns to a fellow shadowing her, snapping her fingers. The man reaches into the backpack on his shoulders, pulling out a wad of money, several wads of money clumped up together by rubber bands and from Roy's position he cannot tell how much.

The weapons dealer looks nearly knocked off of his rocker by this, smirking. "My, my... you Westerners truly do pay your debts, huh?"

"What debts?" Sheik snaps her gaze to him.

He's unfazed, simply flitting through each Franklin bill after Franklin. "I provide weapons for the United States army and other military branches. Now, with Corrin's bill that extends it to the Syrenet program."

The blonde arms dealer turns to give the wads of cash to Midna, both distracted as if they titled their heads up slightly, they'd see Sheik's eyes flare akin to that of a supernova, hands clenched, teeth gritted down like a nose to the grindstone. Roy notices this awkward shift of body language, almost giving himself away with his shoes slip on the gravel beneath his feet. "I am not part of the United States military, Mr. Collins. Have you already forgotten what I told you over the phone?"

Link gives her a gaze just as contemptuous back, almost sneering. "I talk to many people every day Miss Braring, so forgive me for not remembering what political allegiance or group you belong to. I am for most certain these weapons aren't being given to some Texas choir boys group, but for all I know, you're a crime kingpin in Sacramento..." he scowls, wanting a cigarette. The blonde doesn't smoke that often, as actually the last time he placed a tobacco rod of death between his teeth was in the White House with Corrin.

Sheik's frown curls into that of a smile. "Something of similar tastes, Mr. Collins."

"Oh?"

Midna raises her head, brain connecting thoughts to each other. "Rebels..."

The leader of the Midwestern rebel bands grins. "Yes, you're correct."

"Rebels..." Link lets the word slip off his tongue like silky butter sliding against a piece of toast. "The same ones going after Corrin's Syrenet project, huh? You need these weapons for some sacking of a city with the scientific development there?"

"I prefer my plans to not be disclosed. Join my cause, and maybe you'll learn some things."

By the corner behind the wall, Roy is this close to screaming, so he bites down on his tongue to stop the sound from seeping through, giving away his attention. The lucid taste of copper fills his mouth, staining his cheeks and teeth with the rusted brown stain of human life. By the trio of dealings, Link rewinds a few words Sheik said to his ears, his gaze becoming murderous, the weapons dealer gripping the blonde's elbow roughly.

"Rebels?" he hisses through his teeth. "The same ones who attacked a branch of mine in Portland? The same rebel group who destroyed almost four million dollars of merchandise and killed like an eighth of those who work for me?" Link leans in, gritting his teeth together viciously. "I find out you so much as had a hair in that mess, I will murder you myself, Miss Braring, I swear it by-"

Sheik removes Link's grip by grabbing his hand with the other, twisting his pointer, middle, and ring finger together, causing the blonde man to cry out. Midna tenses, hand going to her waist. Roy's breath hitches in his throat. He's not so sure how happy he is to witness a murder, though the words uttered between the trio were enough to incarcerate them all, Corrin's suspicious true. It hits him momentarily. Corrin Etch _is_ right? Is this the first time the woman has ever been right?

Sheik snaps a glance at Midna, the ferociousness in the fiery orbs causing Midna herself to stir uneasily as Link feels the pain erupt all over his hand. Sheik lets go, grabbing Link by the lapels of his jacket. "Do not combine me with that group of rebels, Mr. Collins! Those who disagree with the government on the West coast are not associated with me or those I lead. We share a common enemy, nonetheless, that being Corrin and Syrenet, but their methods are far more brutish. Attacking innocents is deplorable. I am sorry for what they did in Portland, but I did not order that nor did I have any part in that."

"How can I trust you with that?"

"I would've killed you with my own hands just now had I been behind that," she threatens, and Roy believes it.

"Seems like you aren't above killing people, though, Miss Braring," Link says with snark, perhaps playing to an imaginary lord of death as the blonde dances with his life hanging by a gentle and loose thread. "You and your wildling group of people with distaste for the establishment that keeps this country afloat destroyed the company of Oklahoma City. Anything to say in defense to that?"

Sheik eyes the weapons dealer with a laugh. "You think you're so clever, Mr. Collins, but you're stupider than I thought," she jests. "I told you that my enemy is Syrenet, and then that foul trash comes in and desecrates the city in which I grew up. I capitalized and took action on the opportunity presented to me. President Etch wanted those men dead, as you know those on the frontline besides those commanders had nothing but blanks in their rifles-"

"Rifles that they did not buy from me..." Link interrupts smarmily, smirking.

She grits her teeth, tightening her grip around the coat lapels. "Forty men in Syrenet died. How many do you think our venomous president Corrin Etch kills a day under her administration if you so as much look at her the wrong way? Oh, believe me, Mr. Collins, I know what you see in the silverette she-devil, given the tabloids say you're constantly in the White House-"

"For business matters!" Midna snarls, stepping in between them.

"He's there regardless. I imagine, in certain circles, that looks quite auspicious," Sheik points out, shooing the redhead away with the quick jut of her head backwards. "The same group you pledged allegiance to, you're now betraying them. You said you're a man of honor, especially to your words."

"I am!" Link throws his hands up in the air. "I am a man of word, to one thing in the world, called money. You hold the money, you hold the golden ticket to a man's personal heaven, and then it means you hold the power. My allegiance is to those who pay, not to those who feel they deserve it without having the coin in their pocket to not pay for services."

The blonde rebel leader unlatches herself off of Link's jacket. She looks at the two of them, Midna and Link, with a glare. "I hope the funds given to you help in some way, shape, or form. If you use my money to build more weapons and those weapons are given to Syrenet soldiers, I promise that'll it be alright, as business is business. I expect to see my shipment of guns and other machines sent my camp address like I gave you by the weekend or otherwise I'll come back here myself and take your entire supply with me, along with your head," she threatens. Sheik turns around, business being done nice and well, Link Collins for once speechless as the rebel walks back down the cobblestone path, her guards at her heels. The blonde stops by the iron wrung, the iron black gates. "You're such a pitiful man, Mr. Collins. I hope you redeem yourself sometime in this world before you die..."

With that, she vanishes in a peal of car exhaust and smoke, leaving Link fuming. Midna's hands trace symbols into his shoulders, across his clavicle, and she nods at him before vanishing into the compound.

Roy stands away from his spot, having recorded the entire conversation, plus seeing it with his own eyes. The redhead looks around with panic shooting through his veins, taking off further into the buildings of iron, bullets, and black plastic.

Link looks up from his hands, mind musing over the conversation that just had taken place. A pebble from Roy's run dislodges and taps down the sidewalk, causing the blonde to sway from side to side with his gaze. He swears to himself, as he knows that he isn't crazy, that something was there, someone _is_ there. Link shrugs, running a hand through his hair.

"Probably just the wind... or maybe I'm losing my freaking mind..." he mutters to himself, trudging after Midna.

In the sky far and up above, the sky is gray and bleak with clouds of fumigation, war, and industry.

An industrial war that Corrin Etch and Link Collins started.

And maybe an industrial war that Sheik Braring would be the one to see it through its end.

* * *

 **Ah there, we are ladies and gentlemen! That was Chapter #8: Rebel Dealings, and man, oh man, who were those that predicted that Link would be guilty as charged? Seems we have a few smart apples in our bunch, good for you! These author notes were meant to be red herrings as I always included Link first as the options, but it didn't fool anyone so _drat._ I'm happy to be writing Sheik again, but it won't be a long while till we get to hear from her again, so keep your thoughts there and let them collect. Midna is going to grow, as all she is right now is a woman to be Link's guard. What about Marth and Robin's conversation? I didn't originally plan it, but in a story about deception and murder and fraud and betrayal, I think there needs to be a few characters based on honor, but then there are those who take it a step forward and that is where Robin Wyndel steps in. We'll get to see all four Syrenet commanders that aren't Roy soon enough, and our one and only Snake will be back. There have been a lot of characters introduced, I understand, but there are many more to meet. How about Corrin? I hope to reveal her true intentions, whom she really is, but moreso that she's a tortured soul in a circle of bitter rivals and even worse decisions. Soon, you'll be rooting for her than despising her knowing many of you. Mac Sarasota is also a new character, originally I hadn't included him up until like Monday, so I hope he's a good choice. Thanks so much for reading. Please review! Let me know what you thought, as I'd be very happy to hear what you have to say. I AM super busy next week with a lot of play rehearsals, play performances, SAT's, and other things so I think it'll be a week - two weeks or so till I post for Syrenet again (if lucky, a Thursday posting or a Saturday posting though I can't make promises). I hope to see you all again with Chapter #9: Transgress Against Us. Love you all so much! Have an amazing day! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm of Writing**


	9. Chapter 9: Transgress Against Us

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, #9: Transgress Against Us. A lot has happened on my busy week and there's far more for me to endure come this week with even more rehearsals and the end of the quarter at school (just ten more weeks and I'll officially be a senior, like holy crud). I have been thinking about Syrenet and the next three chapters in this story all week, while I was taking an SAT, the dialogue conversations you'll see from here on out running rampant like bullet trains and whatnot. Whew, I can never get enough of fiction. Review replies!**

 **Guest- I have to say that I haven't watched a single second of any of the Terminator films nor do I know truly anything about the series as a whole, and have never heard of Skynet so I am unsure exactly as to what I'm ripping off and in what way, given you reviewed the first chapter and nothing on after that. So... I'm going to take your comment and do absolutely nothing with it.**

 **SolarEnergy07- I've been a Marth fan since my Melee days back in '06, and to believe that he's been a main character in many pieces (Storytellers, Pluto Vacation, Cross Examined, this one, Teach Me How to Cry [am I forgetting any others?]), yes, I like to do justice with his character; a noble man with a sharp tongue. I am glad to be able to inspire you. I've been working at this for four years come July, so yeah, I can say that I maybe am mastering this whole balancing issue.**

 **Mr. Squirtle6- I looked back over the first sentence, and to be frank, was not blown away. There were other bits and pieces in the chapter that had me at awestruck moments that may be giving myself too much credit. Modesty is generally a trait I try to exhibit, so thank you very much for your kind words as per usual. I now understand where you are coming from, and once more as I consistently repeat myself, you're too kind.**

 **Maxcy Leland- There aren't going to be too many of those discussions as the ones you mentioned in chapters from here on out as Syrenet is dark and twisted and bleak where the good ones fall and the bad prosper (eh, Game of Thrones!). Well, I do have to dissuade you that Sheik is not going to be Link's downfall, if Link is to ever have one. And a Midna versus Sheik fight, huh? Haven't thought about that one at all.** ** _Maybe_** **I can fit it somewhere. Mac versus Sheik? Not likely, not with Mac's storyline by constantly being by Corrin's side, no room to leave and go fight blonde rebels.**

 **Ike4ever- Robin is one of those who knows how to play the game but wisely stays out of it if she wants to have her head remain on her shoulders which is more than I can say about Corrin, that's for certain. Glad you liked the chapter! You have many favorites in this story so far, and we're simply nine chapters in so I am flabbergasted at how I can keep knocking people off their feet anymore, as I feel like I've shown people all I've got to offer. Sheik did handle Link very well, but during my planning I realize that our blonde rebel leader doesn't appear all too much given the sheer amount of main characters (seventeen or something of the like).**

 **CrashGuy01- Ever on time you are, good sir! Don't worry, we'll be seeing our blonde husband to Corrin soon, in the flesh, at around Chapter 13, but we get a sneak peek of him far sooner than you think. He's here. Enjoy!**

 **Hope you all enjoy the chapter, #9: Transgress Against Us.**

* * *

Corrin brings the glass of wine up to her lips, legs tucked underneath her wiry frame, sitting on the couch in her quarters. The TV is a blaring mess of static and jagged bits of cardinal and violet pixels that blows in and out from the current hurricane raging over Washington D.C's airspace. Though she's the president, in which she reminds people of all the time as it is her sworn duty, sometimes there's things the government can't prevent: nature, nature, and more nature. Did she mention nature at all? Things roll together in all of her lifetimes.

Her gaze passes over the screen as the news anchor, a stiff man with golden hair that almost resembles her husband, to the string of words in sharp black on acrylic white moving horizontally across the bottom. A few taglines read... _Attack in Portland critical; fires put out, forty members arrested in bombing of arms dealership._ Or it jumps from amazing topics like that which give Corrin a rush of blood to the head to this... _Marijuana sales have dipped down 40% from Syrenet intrusions in several ring cities such as Denver, Miami, and San Antonio._

This causes the president to raise an eyebrow. She doesn't particularly care about the drug, which her stupid congressmen and congresswomen even dared vote to be a law. What draws her up from the sitting position, however, is the mention of Syrenet. Her orders to the group of two hundred men and women working or so were simple. Establish a branch in designated cities, nothing more. There is no sentence in regard to stopping drug trafficking in any of their contracts. Her nostrils flare. " _What? Syrenet is now trying to be the police in the streets because my business is getting their hands too dirty? Drug lords are worse than rebels..."_ Corrin takes another sip of the wine. Why do people in her administration assume to be the peacekeepers of the world?

A low jingle comes from her right, and she glances over, almost spilling the glass full of purple Merlot. The caller ID raises another eyebrow, and she seizes the phone almost haphazardly. Some of the Merlot tips over and splashes to the carpet, but she can get another cleaner to exhume it for her. Corrin hits the 'answer' button on the latest IPhone model, bringing the cellular device to ear.

"Hello?" she says into it.

Someone's voice, a man's, warm and gentle voice, brokers through and it sends shivers down her spine. "Why, hello Corrin."

It sends a spark of excitement along her nervous system, synapses recoiling and lashing out with an unrelenting fury. It's been too long since she's heard his syllables pass over the nape of her neck. "It's been awhile."

"Ah, you know me. I never quit at this business. New York is a testy state to run, madam president."

"That's crap, Cloud, and you know it," Corrin laughs.

Though she cannot see her husband, she can sense through the phone that her man, her Cloud Gladwell, is smiling. With his glorious blonde hair that is long yet spiky, radiant diamond hands, and a build most men would only dream of getting, Corrin emotes no emotion more than pride at the fact he's hers. Their marriage is linked by words warped with a zealous fire, kisses placed against temples and on bent hands with crooked tar fingers. She looks at her wedding ring, clenching her fist tight.

"Perhaps," he jokes. "Are you watching the news?"

"I am," she assures him. Corrin Etch is always watching the news.

"So let me get this straight, madam president," Cloud japes. "You're sitting around, doing absolutely nothing, while your country tears itself apart? The same one you took a vow to keeping aligned? Tsk, tsk... Corrin, you're on the road to impeachment at this rate!"

She settles to let her blood simmer, as her temper flares. Any mentioning he makes about impeachment gets her head spinning, and her heart to start beating as two of the presidents before her had been removed out of office for reasons to scandalous to mention. Though Corrin promises herself, and promised the nation, she's better than that, even her presidency isn't shrouded by some lies, bloodshed, more lies, and even more bloodshed. Corrin grimaces a smile for the intent at practicing one, as there's been complaints that she's too cold. " _You want to see cold?"_ she thinks. " _I can show you cold by letting the entire country starve! Better yet, I bomb you all out like the sewer rats you are. But, I can't do that, it'd be bad for ratings,"_ then aloud, she whispers into the phone, "Careful darling, you know any conversation of my public cell is recorded."

"I know," Cloud admits. "I'm lazy. Let your secret service agents hear what I have to say. Maybe they'll take my criticisms and actually use them."

"Lazy? A senator of the United States of America is lazy? What a shocker."

She hears the sound of a clattering coffee cup on the other end. Cloud gives a sigh, long and loud, and the silverette hugs her sides tight. Her husband is so close to her, yet so far. Corrin looks at the analog clock up against the TV. It's only nearing five in the evening, and even then the streams of halcyon light peering through the curtains are starting to still. Cloud clears his throat. "I'm sorry I haven't gotten to talk to you this past week. I should be in D.C with you."

"That's why we're arranging a dinner."

"I hope I made the right decision in inviting Shulk. I like the guy, but..." the senator hesitates, and Corrin can sense the fact he's tugging at his collar, perhaps sweating. "Syrenet has made him paranoid. He isn't the same gentleman I met five years ago at the gala up in Boston, discussing politics and the different types of bullets in guns."

"He was a married man, then," Corrin props an elbow up on the table where her phone had been resting, fist settling into the softness of her cheek. "Fiora was lively and it revitalized everything inside Shulk's body."

A silence hangs in the air. "Until you had her killed."

"I didn't have her killed!" Corrin snaps. "You know that! Shulk knows that! She was sent on a mission and died during that mission, Cloud. It's the same oath you swear when being placed in the army. Died during combat, you died on duty, doing a service to your country."

"She was four months pregnant, Corrin, and you sent her anyways." Cloud responds, as if that's not to make the silverette feel any less guilty.

In actuality, the president of the United States stirs in her spot on the couch, downing the rest of the Merlot in the glass. "If I could go back and stop from signing Fiora into that mission, I would, Cloud. You know it just like anyone else. She was the best operative in Syrenet's early days, even moreso than Shulk and you've seen how good he is now. Detroit was a despondent city, crestfallen in their goal of wanting to be a separate entity. I needed someone to go in and act as a leader to help unite the people back to the nation. Going to war over a city is pale in comparison to the actual Union versus Confederacy war back in the 1860's..."

"And now Detroit, Michigan is a separate entity in itself," Cloud drones. "Separated, yet a part of the Union they aspired to leave. How does that work, sweetheart? Why haven't you brought anyone in to snuff out that pompous group of leaders who run the city?"

"The council of thirteen is hardly my concern. They take twenty days at times to decided what color the damn roads to their city must be painted," Corrin hisses through gritted teeth. "There's hardly an army in those technological borders, no warheads, no nuclear weapons or helicopters. Just thirteen scared 'politicians' that say they're an entity other than our country," the silverette breaks her gaze off from the TV, shutting it off. "I knew Fiora was going into dangerous territory. Shulk wanted to go, but I needed him in Albuquerque making amends with the Mexican government after that oil tanker exploded in Mexico City... had I let Shulk go with her, I may have lost him as well. Who would've replaced him? Ike?" she lets out a bitter laugh, a howl full of snark and venom. "The buffoon who crushes a beer can in one go, has the heart of the giant bears you see in the Charmin commercials? He lets his emotion get the betterment of him."

"You could've had Marth fill that position."

"He's got good aim with a rifle," Corrin ganders, shrugging. "The bluenette is a walking PDST veteran who goes off at even his own shadow at times. I bet you'll suggest Snake, then, knowing you. He's nothing more than a guy who'll die from lung cancer before he's fifty because of the cigars and cigarettes he never stops smoking. Better yet, use Pit Icarus! The boy who knows how to hardwire a car, yet he's never actually used the suits of armor he's created to defend himself. No, Cloud. My decision stands."

He swallows a gulp of the coffee, letting out a sigh. "I love you, Corrin. I suggest turning off the news and going back to working. See you in a couple of days."

Corrin's left eye starts to twitch, and she slaps a hand over it to cease the irritant action. "Love you too..." she whispers, before he quits the call.

The silverette looks at her phone, staring emptily at its black screen before she throws it full force at the wall. She then seizes the empty wine glass and vaults it in the same direction. The next thing that goes flying is the half empty bottle of Merlot. Shards of amaranthine stained glass fly everywhere, puncturing holes in the curtains. A sludge of dark violet plops to the floor, and it reminds Corrin of Fiora's dead body, shaking violently in spasms that resemble being in the chokehold, the throes of death as the president looms over her with a sad face.

" _You should've listened to me, Fiora. Marrying him was a bad decision. I'm sorry."_ the president doesn't flinch as the sound of the gunshot echoes in her head.

Corrin slinks off the couch dejectedly, letting her husband's words reverberate around the room. He loves her, she knows this, but does she love him? The silverette wishes she had an answer? How many people would have to die for her to be happy? There's a question she'd never find an answer to. Her hands grip the windowsill, her waves of exuding anger practically ripping the curtains away from their perch.

"How dare he! How dare he!" she cries out against the walls, as if they'd listen. "What makes Cloud think he can just... _bring_ her up like that?"

She shakes her head. It doesn't matter to her anymore. She willingly sent a woman with a life ahead of her out to die, with a child that Shulk would never get to foster, all because the president of the United States was worried about a mission. Corrin stalks out of the room, down the ivory gilded hallways, and into the Oval Office, slamming the door shut.

She has a phone call to make.

Several phone calls, rather.

* * *

Creaks and groans of metal clinging and clashing erupt all over the supply closet's space, Roy bursting through the door, out of breath. His fiery hair is stuck to his forehead by globules of sweat that smell of rust and rat feces that have been excreted far past any due date. He slams the door shut, lying against the other side of it, chest rising up and down like the swell of the tide in the Pacific Ocean. He tries processing what he's witnessed, but it doesn't seem to get through. What he's sure able to keep together is that weapons dealer Link Collins, perhaps the most trustworthy, if any of the government's allies were fully trustworthy, breaking a sacred bond by trading weapons with a known traitor to the eagle that proudly displays liberty.

His mind is reeling. It tries going over things Snake said to him back on that tarmac when he was flown into Boston. _Call me if anything goes awry. Let me know whatever you can about Link. We'll get you out of there if need be, Mr. Arcadia._ Roy rummages through his pockets, seizing a metal disk that causes his heart to elate immensely.

Roy turns it on, the familiar and warming sky blue light enveloping the room before vanishing, replacing itself with the solid, yet hologram of his AI Unit, Ness. Ness's face is serious, no smart aleck features taking place, eyebrows furrowed as if he's thinking. The redhead begins to pace, running a hand through his hair, trying to keep calm, trying and failing so miserably.

"Ness, what am I supposed to do?" he groans into the rafters.

"You need to stay calm, number one," Ness instructs, hands on his knees, bent over to get a better look at his ally. "You're going to make yourself sick by freaking yourself out. Just remember that Snake needs to be told of the meeting that just happened pronto, as in now," he says. Roy continues to pace, completely out of composure, which Ness is uncertain as to why he's acting so weird. In all his years of being someone's AI Unit, when they're given an assignment and mission report, they do it, no questions asked. Here, Roy's running around like a scared meerkat. "As in," he repeats, "Pull out your cell phone and ring Snake up so many times that when he responds, he screams at you!"

The redhead blinks, breaking out of the stupor of confusion. "Right!" he snaps. Roy reaches into his other pocket, pulling a cellphone, an old model, a flip phone that no one has probably used in ten years, at least. He begins to dial a number, but his hands are so sweaty, his fingers slip on the keys. The phone falls from his grasp, Roy cursing. He slaps a hand over his mouth, hoping no one hears him. Ness rolls his eyes, the irises going white.

"You're alright," the AI Unit says after a moment. "I just did a scan of any possible lifeforms in a five hundred yard radius of us. The nearest person is one of Link's low rank bodyguards by the water fountain currently one thousand feet away, and he's walking away from here. You're good."

Roy runs another hand through his hair, shakily pulling the phone back up to his eye level. He successfully dials Snake's number, letting it ring, bringing the phone up to his ear. It rings, the boy's leg starting to dance crazily against the grim tile. The air smells of copper and darkness, one that causes Roy to gag. Ness observes the Syrenet employee go through the seven stages of fear, seven stages he designed himself. The dark haired AI Unit sits down on his pedestal, trying to wash emotions of calm over his 'boss', for lack of better terms.

On the eighth ring, someone on the other line picks up. Roy nearly collapses to his knees, almost bursting into tears at the sound of Snake's voice. "Roy?"

"Snake! Oh, thank god!" the redhead scrambles to his feet, knocking over a cardboard box and rattling a vacuum from its perch.

"You alright, kiddo? You sound as if you ran a marathon."

"Just about..." Ness says with snark.

"What's up?"

Roy wipes his forehead, taking a few ounces of sweat and slickness of the factory with it, the liquid splashing against the concrete. "Madame Corrin was right. Corrin is dead on the money. Link- Link is trading weapons with rebel leaders."

There's silence on the other end, and for a moment, Roy fears Snake has hung up, which would be the worst thing so far. "One second, Roy. I got your location here on my computer, following every word. We're about two hours out, as Corrin required the FBI to do a mission back in Connecticut, nasty business I won't- that doesn't matter. Can you describe the room you're in?"

The Syrenet employee, still out of breath, looks around wildly. "Some supply closet in the heart of the compound. Link had," Roy swallows. "He had a business meeting immediately after I arrived and said he'd give me a showing of the place, but now after seeing what I saw, there's no desire in my heart to go one of these tours."

"So you're hiding?" Snake asks. The FBI director sighs, one that takes a few years to execute. "Better than having yourself out in the open, that's for sure. Now, I am going to go back over what you just told me. Link Collins, the main weapons dealer for Syrenet, is giving out weapons to the rebels? Describe everything you witnessed."

Roy licks his lips, looking at Ness. The AI Unit nods, facial expression stern. "He's standing there with this woman, I didn't recognize her. She mentioned something about Oklahoma City, or he did and the woman got upset... I couldn't quite tell and I can't quite remember. I'm in a state of panic and-"

"Did you catch a name of this elusive woman?"

"Sheik, sir. Her name was Sheik," Roy answers.

The sound of a keyboard fills the phone for a moment, and Snake utters a quite repulsive swear word. "Well, I'll be darned, Roy. Sheik, this woman you're saying she's called, is the mastermind behind the Midwestern rebellion against Syrenet. She orchestrated the Oklahoma City attack that left Ike and Marth injured, killing like twenty guys with her. We were all wondering where they got the firepower, let alone the manpower, but we now know how they got it."

"What am I to do while you come? I'm by myself for two- two hours..."

"I'm gonna need you to-" Snake begins.

However, the poor redhead never gets to hear what Snake wanted him to do. Ness's expression sours, the AI Unit's mouth opening to utter a warning. Roy doesn't hear the metal door swing open, but he sure does feel the butt of a gun slam against the back of his skull. Roy cries out, dropping the phone. A warm feeling spreads down the base of his skull, and he feels it pooling somewhat in his mouth. He turns around with an agonizing groan to see Link and Midna placed together in the doorway, Midna holding a pistol which she just smacked Roy in the back of the head with.

On the phone, Snake's voice rises into a panic, the FBI director calling out the employee's name over and over again. Link sneers, snapping the phone in two with the immediate flick of his hand. Snake's voice and only beacon of hope for Roy goes out like that, and the blonde's gaze passes over the redhead, completely murderous, no bright light reflecting in the diamond eyes, now black with the want of murder and revenge.

Midna clucks her tongue in disappointment, cocking the pistol. "Come on Mr. Arcadia, aren't you smart enough to not use a landline that goes straight through to the airways here at the compound?"

Link does not let the operative answer, giving him a swift kick to the face.

Roy hits the ground, tastes more copper, and his world turns to black.

* * *

 **And there we are ladies and gentlemen! I don't have time to make an Author's Note, I'm busy. I love you all! Please review and let me know what you thought. Have a great day! See you all for Chapter #10: Collins's Arithmetic. Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm of Writing**


	10. Chapter 10: Collins's Arithmetic

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, #10: Collins's Arithmetic. Man oh man, it is time and it is finally here, the chapter that concludes our first arc, Arc 1: The Boston Smuggler. Arc 2 will begin with the next chapter, but lets just rewind to how stoked I am about this particular chapter and that it shows because good lord Link Collins is going to be doing some subtraction here and you'll see his ego and his power go to an unforeseen height. I've run this dialogue conversation you're going to see in my head so many times. A recap, if you will, that Corrin has spoken to her lovely husband Cloud Gladwell, and now it is revealed that apparently Corrin so called 'arranged' Fiora's death. Roy tried contacting Snake about the business that went down between Link and Sheik, and in his panic, used a landline, public directory which alerted the compound to Roy's whereabouts. Link found him and things are going to get serious. Very,** ** _very_** **serious. Review replies!**

 **Ike4ever- Now, let's not be hasty. What I have shown you guys of Ike is that he has a big heart for friends and family, and that's basically it. He didn't get to do too much action in the first chapter as I suck at writing action, so we'll see how he is in that regard eventually. It may not be Corrin hasn't found anyone, it's that she doesn't trust anyone. Think about who she has trusted in her actual administration and into Syrenet... she got angry with Robin hiring Mac, something she didn't see through herself. Roy will get his due time eventually, maybe a lot later, but he's the main character. He won't be a wuss for long.**

 **Mr. Squirtle6- I understood you the first time, the elaboration was nice however. Corrin is going to be one of those characters you cannot make a thought on. You want to hate her, but then you want to care about her, you want to feel sorry for her, you want her dead, and those thoughts are going to be running through your head a lot as this story goes by. You're also not the first person to tell me about my eye to detail, which is why I think I do good in school, I'm a name dropper, but then I try my durn hardest to tie everything back in. If you thought Icarus Chronicle was my Magnum Opus, then buckle up dude, you haven't seen anything yet.**

 **SeththeGreat- I** ** _have_** **not played a Metal Gear game, that is correct. I have watched one though, the one with the Mantis villain (the name fleets me in the midst of writing this, it was a great game though!) I'm glad you like my characterization of him, I hope he's more than just the muscle who sprouts random things on the side. If you remember how I wrote his character in Teach Me How to Cry, I think of him a lot differently than what the rest of the fandom thinks of him as, and I'm glad we share the same mindset on this.**

 **CrashGuy01- Thanks again for the compliments! I just wish I could write long enough chapters like you do, I don't have the energy nor the patience for it I suppose, at least as of yet. Corrin is going to probably be my favorite character of the story, just something about her. Link is going to show he isn't all just talk this time around, though he has hardly proven he's a coward with the poisoning and all, I want him to be very tactical. Hope this keeps you on the edge of your seat!**

 **Retronym- Hey, surprised to see your face again! How you've been? Well, I don't think I've ever killed the main,** ** _main_** **character before in a story besides one that was from my youth, but then again I've really grown and love to twist that knife. Oh sweetie, a week in between updates, sometimes up to two, drives me nuts. A three-four day update difference hurts because my mind just doesn't stop, it just never stops working. Thanks for the kind words!**

 **Alrighty, buckle up and enjoy the ride ladies and gentlemen! A fair warning before I start, this chapter will have some violence. Nothing on the borderline for Rated M stuff or anything, because again, 'Rated T', but, if you handled the stuff in the first chapter, you can handle this. Enjoy!**

* * *

She stands on the tarmac, smirking at the sleek blizzard coat of paint swooshed across the side of the jet. Corrin places herself on the runway so her feet are angled at the same distance apart from the yellow lines breaking up the strip of black. She does this wherever she goes, purely for symmetry purposes as when things aren't in order, it gets her a little out of wack and no one needs a president who is out of wack.

 _Then how come you are always out of wack, Madam President?_ Corrin is not even sure which voice in her head - Link, Shulk, Cloud... all blondes - tells her that.

The silverette looks down the runway to see a limousine pull up and park, and the woman's nostrils flare, knowing for certain who is in that car and how she wants to wring their pruned, perfect little neck. She looks away from the limo, hoping the signs of her distress is not apparent to anything else other than clouds, sun, and grass. Her heart doesn't need people sliding little whispers down her back on why the vice president and president could be having a falling out; Corrin finds the attention rather fun, to be honest, but she's playing a game of chess where one wrong move may cause her the presidency, her life, Cloud's life, and other necessities she wishes to keep close to her.

Not that Corrin Etch has ever been an expert at playing anything of the sort, truth be told.

Her last glass of wine lingers on her lips like a phantom, Cloud's voice echoing in her ears. She's still upset at the call. Corrin is delighted, elated rather, to hear his voice and then he goes full circle by bringing up Fiora Roberts, as if it is supposed to help lighten the mood. The president is upset enough, she's mourned enough, she's cried enough fake tears to fill a cistern, about the blonde woman's death and it is not a death she needs resurrected all of a sudden. Not now, especially after Snake's urgent phone call on Roy Arcadia's compromised state. The president laughs when she hears the news. Not because she's happy, most certainly not, for the redhead's capture or even towards his presumable imminent death, but primly because the silverette trusts someone brand new and it got her backstabbed. " _Looks like Link Collins's favor has been thrown out the window..."_ she thinks to herself, noticing the sound of heeled feet getting closer and closer.

Corrin stiffens, not looking her counterpart in the eyes. She does not want to give Robin Wyndel, the cheating ass that she is, any leverage. None, whatsoever. She longs for that glass of Merlot. There's plenty of it on the flight, but again, with Link's words reminding her every second, the country does not need a drunk politician, there's plenty of old men who are portly and red faced to fill that spot by the thousands. How lucky Corrin is that those are the people who have to be her closest political allies. Robin stands peachy and perky, then decides to throw the zinger out there as the woman only lives once, and the worst possible thing Corrin is capable of doing is having the vice president killed.

"We're flying to the mansion?" Robin frowns. "It's only an hour and a half drive. Why waste the money and the fuel?"

"I get car sickness," the president keeps her cool. She needs Robin on _her_ side, not fighting for whatever else the woman wants to fight for. All Corrin does is make sure the interest of the nation, with her behest kept in it, of course, is the prime concern of the Etch administration. Anyone who wishes to deny the country its saving grace and future can be nothing but dismal matters to Corrin; a simplistic wave of her hand and they turn to dust, dust that she shall make sandcastles, roads, and skyscrapers out of. "I've had it for years."

"No you don't," the vice president quips back, quiet and low so none of the secret service agents can hear her. Corrin's nostrils flare, her eyes burn. "You're trying to make a statement, I've known you long enough to sense something like that," Robin admits. "Or you're publicly going to humiliate someone. I imagine it must be me given how you're treating me. I suppose I'll have to play my role of apologizing and groveling at your feet. The cameras will flash, you'll forgive me, and we'll go back to being the partners in crime that we always were. Wouldn't you agree?"

However, Corrin wants to interrupt, neither woman truly hates each other. They couldn't live without one another. On the outside, Corrin's fine. On the inside...

The temperature in Corrin's skin cannot be described merely enough by her hands and face feeling 'hot'. Take a sauna raised to the hottest degree metal burns at, then place that in Mt. Saint Helens, then take that and drop it into the Sahara Desert, fry it in Venus's atmosphere, crack open the sun like a sunny-side egg, drop the agglomeration into the star's core, and then let the sun perform a supernova that wipes out all of humanity. That is not even a mere tenth of how angry and boiling did Corrin feel the moment Robin's words left her lips.

She remembers very well, almost so perfect it scares her actually, the day she and Robin met. The woman, her vice president, her 'best friend', is nothing more than a one term senator from a state no one seems to care about, small and pathetic and drawn in, and when Corrin decides that she needs someone sweet to help soften the bitterness embedded in her by a long D.C winter, Corrin Etch takes the weak, meek, scrawny, and incompetent Robin Wyndel and raises her to goddess status. And this is how she's repaid. The nerve. The absolute nerve.

Corrin's left eye begins twitching again. "I know about Mac Sarasota. You know I don't like people going behind my back and hiring people into this administration without my consent. Especially if they're to be guarding my back. What if one decides to kill me?"

Robin does not even bat an eye. "Then I suppose you'll have to be nice to them, then."

"What on earth possessed you to think of doing such a thing?"

"Perhaps the fact I actually want the president of the United States to be guarded by a competent man!" Robin snaps, turning to the silverette in question. "Did it ever occur to you that people on Capitol Hill, and the people outside of the white safehouse we dwell in actually _don't_ like you? All the guys you picked to be in your secret service can fire a gun very well, but don't do any speaking for themselves nor can they stand in man-to-man combat. So, in fairness, I dropped someone into the male entourage of black suits and white business ties to help you that can use a pistol and their fists. I am so sorry for having bruised your ego."

"It's not about my ego?"

"Then what is it then, Corrin? I'd be delighted to know," Robin snaps again, and then more soft, "I do care about you, you know."

The woman blinks, and the anger recedes out of her in a flash. Robin's answer makes sense, logical sense, and for the first time someone in her administration may have done something on the betterment of the one leading it, not for their own selfish gain. Corrin's eyebrows furrow back together again, she's not letting her vice president off the hook _that_ easily however.

"I know you spoke to Marth Lowell last night." she rocks on the back of her heels.

"Yes. It shouldn't come to you as a surprise. The invoice crossed your desk, but you were busy orchestrating that treaty between Kenya and New Zealand, so I took some of the trouble off of your hands."

"What did you talk about?"

"Nothing of your concern."

"As president of this country, I imagine anything happening under my administration is my concern, so yes, Robin, _it_ is impotent for me to know about it." Corrin's eyes flash dangerously, akin to that of a viper. She clenches her left hand into a fist, wanting to launch herself on that tarmac across the black paint and pummel her best friend for all it is worth. Maybe she's just on her period and everyone and everything is upsetting her. Not the most unlikely of thoughts. This passes Corrin's mind momentarily, before blinking. That couldn't be it. Corrin Etch is just this way and everyone will have to deal with it.

Robin looks her superior in the eye, her own gaze matching nothing less than that of distanced caution. "Marth told me that he, Ike, Shulk, and Pit are tired of being confined to the headquarters here in D.C till the next mission you assign them. He asked if they could have the weekend off and stay somewhere. I let them go and stay at Cloud's little place out in Norfolk. With him flying in for the dinner this weekend, it is unoccupied and no one will bother them."

The twitching of the eyes resume and Corrin wants to scream. "You're just letting my employees stay on my husband's property?"

"What's the worst thing they're going to do? Burn the place down?" Robin retorts. In actuality, that _could_ be the worst thing. Give Ike and Shulk one too many beers in their hands, a cigarette or cigar, and enough country music, they'll have all of Yellowstone National Park burned down before anyone could scream the word, 'fire'.

Corrin leans into Robin's crook so her words go unheard. "As a reminder, I'd simply like to have anything done in this administration to at the very least be mentioned to me and not by some television news station."

"Loud and clear, madam president," the other silverette quips a smile.

"God, I hate you Robin Wyndel..."

The president, despite her stoic and enraged appearance, breaks a grin as well and the two ladies laugh heartily. Their voices warp together into the air like a harmonic note played by an orchestra in an abandoned concert hall, like those in Sydney, Australia. Corrin places a hand on Robin's shoulder. She has no reason to be this upset over a few executive decisions. It isn't as if Robin Wyndel went and launched all the nuclear missiles towards the moon or something outrageous like that. Corrin's skin bristles back to that of the cold air outside, and for once in quite a long time, she's content.

"I'm sorry," she apologizes. "I think that this week has been very stressful. I've been getting accounts from Snake in Boston that Roy was compromised and I blew things all out of proportion and-"

"Everyone makes mistakes..." Robin says softly. "It's just that some are easily forgiven over others. Remember that."

The vice president breaks away from her spot, going to climb up the steps leading into the jet, leaving Corrin behind to stare ahead with a look of bewilderment. Everything has been an upside down rollercoaster at ninety miles per hour, and Corrin's starting to realize that perhaps the world doesn't play by her rules anymore. Perhaps it never did.

The thought of that sickens her, but it does something else it too, something that brings Corrin to her knees as she climbs up the steps, secret service agents running forward to help their downed leader, their downed queen.

The thought of the world never playing by her rules sickens her.

It terrifies her.

* * *

Light streams through several open windows of a room that Roy does recognize, the redhead waking up with a groan. He opens his eyes, blinking, the world around him drowning in a widespread greyscale blur. He can make out a few blobs, several things he presumes that are people, holding black machines which Roy deduces to be guns. Shifting his gaze directly forward, a blur with a mass of blonde slowly walks up to him, and then breaking through past that is a cloud of red akin to his own, and then his heart begins to beat.

The grim figure of Link Collins breaks through first, and before Roy utters one word, the weapons dealer has punched him square across the jaw. Roy coughs, reeling back, trying to lift his hands up to defend himself from the other man's attack. His heart sinks when his limbs do nothing but struggle against the bonds pinning him down, the redhead's arms and legs tied to a wooden chair. This is all too familiar. He's seen enough movies to know how this'll end.

"The pretty boy is finally awake. About time," Link growls through gritted teeth. "I thought we were going to have another fairytale of Sleeping Beauty on our hands."

"S- sorry to disappoint..." Roy murmurs back slyly. For his courage and stupidity, Link socks the Syrenet officer underneath the jaw.

Roy's head is pounding, and all he can remember previously is Link's booted foot connecting with his face, the coldness of tile, and the unwelcoming fear of a black void where his mind lingers into an unconscious state. Link grimaces, turning around, nursing his knuckles. In the back, out the corner of Roy's eye, is Midna, the woman is standing impervious and tall, face devoid of all emotion, eyes suggesting nothing but impasse. Roy cranes his neck around the room to find himself in something almost like a hanger. The roof stands spacious and tall, the chilly gusts of air causing Roy to realize he's shirtless and he's missing pants as well, save for his underwear. He swallows. This isn't good.

On his ride lies a window, many frames dipping together in a reflective pool of diamond surfaces. Outside, perhaps a good quarter of a mile away, is a building, high rise, cracked, and painted a rugged Earth brown. It is all Roy can see from the window, and he tries looking to the right, but something prevents him from doing so. He's not liking very well the notion of not having a shirt. He strains against his bindings, Link walking up to him slowly, ever so slowly, booted soles colliding with the stark tile, a tiled floor that is covered in oil stains, crimson copper stains that Roy presumes to be blood, and other stains he cannot identify.

There's another chair in front of Roy facing him, though it is unoccupied. Link grabs the back of it, spinning it around so the back is facing Roy, and he sits down. The redhead tries to match his gaze, but all he sees in Link's disposition is fury, unmistakable rage and pure anger that sooner or later is going to spill all over this good Earth and all over poor Roy.

Link places a hand underneath Roy's jaw, forcing the redhead to stare at the ceilings, which is covered by blades hanging down, probably no more than five feet or so away from the Syrenet employee's skull. The weapons dealer removes his hand from Roy's jaw, going back to circling the chair and pacing. His henchmen and lackeys are all holding guns, some with knives and grenades at their belts. Roy Arcadia is no longer in Kansas, he knows that one hundred percent in full.

The blonde claps his hands, and so it begins. "Y'know... if the movies and the books have taught you one thing, it is always the new guys who come in who then stab the villains in the back. Isn't that the truth?" he asks, glaring at Roy, his voice jubilant despite his body proving an emotion otherwise. "The villains place their unguarded trust in the newbie who is now working for the FBI or the Kremlin or God knows what, anything the man in the sky can conjure up! However, in _my_ life, I've been backstabbed and betrayed by those who are long term allies and friends. My brother, my sister, a little girl who I used to play with when I was six... even my own mother. Put all of that in the past now," Link opines, grinning. "I find the movies to be sprouting out just a bunch of bs! No brand new person is going to show up and rip the carpet right from underneath me... but look at how wrong I've been now, haven't I? Damn Roy Arcadia, who hasn't even known me for more than _two_ days, betrayed me and the entire compound that works for me. It looks like the movies and books we all see got something right! Who would have even guessed! It certainly never occurred to me!"

Roy knows that what he's about to say isn't going to help the situation, he's never actually been known to help any sort of situation, but nonetheless he goes for it anyways because Arcadias are bold. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."

An unreadable emotion flickers across the arms dealer's face. "What was that, Mr. Arcadia? I didn't hear you. Speak up, please," he leans into Roy's comfort space, the redhead's exposed and bare skin bristling contact between the two like a thousand gigawatts of electricity spurring between the men. "I want my entire compound to hear you! I want the whole world to hear what you said! REPEAT IT!" he growls, grabbing Roy by the sides of his face, bringing him close so the redhead can look straight into Link's unrelenting stare of terror.

The redhead repeats it. "I'm sorry..." God, is Roy Arcadia a running record?

Link drops the chair back onto the floor, wiping at his face, nearly laughing. "Do you hear that, boys? The scared, helpless little kid from D.C is apologizing!" he turns back to Roy, scaring the boy half to death. "Apologies aren't going to save you now..." he hisses. Roy's chest rises and falls steadily with every passing breath. Link goes back to pacing. "To be fair, Mr. Arcadia, I am not a fan of bloodshed. It has never been my thing, so I get other people to generally do it for me. I also said that I am not a lying man, I'm very honest with my clients and they with me. However, I like to expound upon my rules at times on those who break my trust. So, the whole thing about bloodshed... is a lie, at least for you. Your blood will be spilled, and I'll enjoy every second of watching you suffer and squirm!" The man's eyes brighten to inexplicable heights, but he notices Roy's terrified, panicked expression and it sinks, feeling a moment of pity for him. "Last night, when I poisoned you, you really did say nothing incriminating at all on anything. All you did was mention this brown haired guy who you didn't like and that he scared you. I took it for an abusive dad or brother, or a lover or something, it could've been anyone and anything, and that's between you and whomever the guy is. However, I think you were referring to Mr. Snake Karlo, weren't you? Do you not know Snake Karlo? Y'know, the damn leader of the FBI!" Link roars.

Roy wants to shield his eyes from the anger, he needs to get out of here and back into the safety of D.C. "Yes..." he says weakly.

"I don't want to spill your blood first, at least," the blonde gives a slight frown, stopping it immediately as frowning causes wrinkles, and Link Collins hates wrinkles. "I like trying the diplomatic approach. The world is built on both diplomacy _and_ violence, after all. So, this is what we're going to do.. you listening?" Roy's head lolls around on his shoulders, trying to shift around in his bindings. "Some simple good cop versus bad cop, the easy way or the hard way. We'll do the nice ole' game of good cop, easy way..." Link says, a grin dancing across his face, one that suggests perhaps the man is not entirely sane. He swivels on his heel towards Midna. "Give me the disk, please."

Midna reaches into her pocket, throwing the arms dealer something that Roy cannot make out. Link catches it, placing it on the floor between the two chairs out at an angle so everyone can see it. A familiar sky blue light appears from the disk to the redhead, beads of sweat starting to role down. His heart begins to slam against his ribcage, and soon the pixelated form of Ness Morrison, Roy's AI Unit comes into view. Ness is standing in the center of the disk, arms crossed over his chest, and instead of his gaze being directed at Roy which the redhead expects, it's pointed towards Link, full on murderous.

"No," Ness says. "Absolutely not."

Link feigns an expression of confusion. "I haven't even asked you anything."

"I'm smart enough to know an interrogation when I hear one. I imagine you don't know anything about Syrenet technology, Mr. Collins, but I can hear all and see all if I technically choose too," the AI Unit's eyes flash, and Ness lifts his head up as if to muster a challenge. "Whatever you have planned, it won't work. May as well not even try."

The arms dealer grits his teeth, leaning in low. "Listen here you little wretch, I'll-"

"You'll what?" Ness interrupts, eyes flaring. "You'll hurt me? I am a hologram, if you have already forgotten. I cannot be injured in any bodily way. You won't get me to tell you what I helped Roy sent out, and you can't threaten me for answers. There's nothing you can do. I won't betray Roy, and he won't betray me."

Link looks debauched for a moment, thrown off by the sudden spark that festered deep within Ness's soul. He's been at this a long time, even for his youthful appearance with the hair and clothes. He will not betray his foundation, his home, his life, for some lowlife guy who cannot keep his word to one single person. The blonde walks around, shaking his head, muttering to himself. Roy tries stealing a glance at Ness, anything to get his own ally in the room's attention, but Link has a moment akin to an epiphany, smirking at Ness. "That's where you're wrong! I can't injure you, that's right. _But,_ I can hurt Roy. All I have to do is ask you a question, and should you or him not answer it, he gets hurt. On and on I'll do this. But, I will make sure our precious captive doesn't die, no. I need him alive. If he dies, then who will I have to hurt? Oh, _thank_ you, you stupid piece of programming!" Link coos low in his throat. He reaches behind his waist for something, and Roy's eyes widen to a new size that he didn't think was ever possible.

The blonde traces the edge of the knife he pulled from his waist along the underside of Roy's jaw, the redhead whimpering and struggling against his restraints once more. Link leans his head back and laughs, going to the second chair, pulling it closer and closer to Roy, so close almost that they're touching forehead to forehead. Ness swallows. "Look, I know you're desperate, but... but we can talk this out-" the AI unit rambles.

"Let's play a game! That sounds fun, right? Come on, we'll play a game!" Link's eyes are feral and wild. "I ask Mr. Arcadia here a question. If he doesn't answer me, I stab or cut him somewhere that'll produce just enough pain that it elicits a response! Sound fun?" Before anyone on either side has a chance to speak a single word, he's made the executive order. "Sounds brilliant!" he licks his lips. "Alright, Mr. Arcadia. Maybe you don't work for the FBI, as there's always loopholes and perhaps you're just a hired hand. Who's your actual employer? And don't say God or something like that, because it's bullshit."

Roy looks away. "I can't tell you."

Link flashes a look at Ness, who is eyeing everything.

"Who's his employer, machine?"

"I'm not telling you," Ness sniffs.

The blonde looks back at Roy. "Who is your employer, Mr. Arcadia?" Roy does not respond. Link flashes Ness another look. There's no response from the AI Unit. The blonde lets out a groan. "Now, this isn't very fun!" he leans forward and slices the knife down the underside of Roy's jaw, up near the crook of the ear to about where the skin meets Roy's Adams apple. The redhead's breathing begins to quicken, and he's wincing as the thin, yet damaging crimson line starts to leak blood. "Ooh, that looks nasty. You want something for that?"

"You don't have to do this!" Ness shouts, face paling.

"Oh but I do, you freak of nature!" the weapons dealer screams back at the AI Unit. His gaze falls back on Roy. "Next question! What did you tell the big bad boss Snake Karlo in D.C?" Silence passes over the trio. "Nothing?" Link steals a glance at Ness, the Syrenet device unmoving, unsure exactly of what to do. "Ah, the answer was supposed to be, 'I'm sorry Mr. Collins, I only said this and this.' Maybe this'll stir your memory, Mr. Collins!"

The pain is unbearable as Link drives the knife straight into Roy's leg. The redhead lets a scream leech off of his lips, cardinal matter spewing everywhere onto the tile. Ness looks away at the horrifying noises, and even Midna stirs somewhat in her spot. Link throws his head back, hair flowing with him. "Come on Mr. Arcadia! I don't want to injure you!"

Roy begins breathing out of his nose, trying to not focus on the fact a weapon has placated itself into his thigh. "Please don't..." he pleads.

Link turns around to say something quick and snarky when a loud, disturbing shriek breaks the glass on the window, causing all the men and women in the room that are standing to fall to their knees. The blonde yells out, and when Roy recuperates from the shrill noise, his eyes catch onto someone standing atop the brown building off in the distance, the pain in his leg evaporating. At a second look, Roy discovers that the building isn't even half a mile away from him, but moreso like thirty yards, hardly a distance where one couldn't hear each other.

Off in the distance, Snake Karlo is lying on the roof of the building, a sniper rifle crooked underneath his elbow, earplugs stuffed in his ear, a stereo system which he used to create the discordant noise by his side. He grabs for the megaphone by his side, speaking into it, before realizing it isn't necessary. "Mr. Collins! I'm so sorry to have interrupted your interrogation slash torture session, but I'm afraid the man you're mutilating in there is a confidant of mine who's true boss wants him back, unspoiled, and well, you're ruining her favorite worker. We don't want the mother's wrath to fall down upon us, do we?"

The blonde goes to retrieve the knife from Roy's leg, who is watching the chaos unfold with wide eyes when the click of a gun behind him causes him to stop. Link turns around to see that Midna has a pistol pointed for his head, point blank. All the other men in Link's group stand still, stunning blurs of action happening before them. Midna cocks the gun evidently so Link can hear it. "Don't even think about going for the weapon, Link," she warns.

Link breaks into a raucous laugh. "Wow! Not only do I have one traitor, but my most trustworthy worker in the entire compound is one too! Whose payroll are you on, Midna?"

"Mine!" Snake owns up to it. "Now, you do anything rash and either her or me puts a bullet into your skull. Is that how you want to die, Mr. Collins? Being shot in some hanger in the middle of nowhere because you couldn't put your pride on the shelf?"

"If Midna is yours, then who does Roy work for?" the blonde demands, eyeing both Snake and Midna carefully.

"Syrenet," Ness answers, eyes going to Roy who's been tiring out, his own eyelids starting to droop. "I'm surprised that I wasn't the immediate giveaway. What other government spy anywhere in the country or the world has AI Units at their beck and call? He's on President Corrin's payroll, and you've disturbed the wrong hornet's nest."

"Come on Link, give it up. I've known you for a long time. I don't want to see you die this way," Midna pleads.

"If you drop the weapon now, we won't harm you," Snake reasons.

"And instead I'll have to kiss Corrin's fat ass and beg for my life?" Link's eyes burn with hellfire.

"It's better than death."

"Please, don't do this..." Midna pleads once more.

"Fat chance!" Link snarls.

He reaches for something at his waist, a grenade perhaps, but that's the last thing Link Collins will ever do There's the sound of gunfire. Roy squeezes his eyes shut, waiting for the impact of a bullet if one is to come his way. He feels the knife get removed from his leg, the sound of a dying animal spilling out from his throat. When he opens his eyes, Snake is marching forward from his perch on the building, sniper rifle smoking. Link is lying in the middle of the room, a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead, a pool of crimson spilling out around him. Ness closes his eyes, squatting down, throwing his hands over his ears.

Midna is holding the knife, the stained blade held firmly in her hands. The other guys in Link's group snarl, launching forward. Roy gets pushed back by the redheaded woman, who launches forward into the fray. He cries out, head hitting concrete, and the lights pop out.

He loses consciousness for the third time in two days to the sound of Midna screaming in pain, Snake crying something out in rage, and the raucous hail of gunfire to be the orchestral hit to it all.

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 **I don't know the last time I've written something so tense and intense for that matter, ever. Well there we are ladies and gentlemen, Chapter #10: Collins's Arithmetic, finished in all but name. That was also the end of Arc 1. Surprised, eh? Midna Nye, Link's trusted hand, isn't actually who she says at all but it is an FBI agent, which I bet none of you saw coming. (I hope it wasn't cliché, I really do). And yep, Link Collins is dead, which I apologize for, but I didn't feel like stringing along his storyline when it didn't have much to go. He's a pseudo villain, as the real one has yet to appear and won't for quite some time. Let's back it up to Corrin and Robin's conversation first, however. Our president and vice president do not get along. Robin finds the former to be quite too vicious for her taste, but there isn't much she can do about it except provide damage control for the destruction Corrin leaves in her wake. Corrin is either really crazy and off her meds, or she's this way and only cares about herself, but I don't think anyone has found that to be a surprise. Back to the second half of the chapter, I am happier than I expected I would be at how this turned out. You all know me and how I love my villains more than anyone giving a monologue, but still following through with their punishment. I hope this wasn't too gory, as there won't be many scenes like this one with a character being tortured the way Roy was, poor boy. He'll get his chance though. And awww yeah, Snake to the rescue! Who predicted that? He has arrived like Littlefinger with the Knights of the Vale from Game of Thrones, ladies and gentlemen and he shall take no prisoners. I understand that events may have happened to fast for your mind to process it all, but I probably won't update again until Sunday or Monday with a much lighter chapter in terms of content, where you shall see the male Syrenet group relax and be, well, themselves. Thanks so much for reading! If you liked the chapter, please review and let me know what you thought! I hope to see you all again soon for Chapter #11: Tinsel on the Porch, starting Arc #2: The Shadowed Game of D.C. I love you all so much! Bye! Have a great day!**

 **~ Paradigm of Writing**


	11. Chapter 11: Tinsel on the Porch

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #11: Tinsel on the Porch. First off, I want to apologize for how long this story has taken for me to continuously get back on track. I always seem to do this where I post a few chapters, take a long break that is beyond inexcusable, and then say I won't do it again when I go right around and do it. I feel like an alcoholic who says he won't drink but goes back and does it anyways, knowing it's wrong. Time got away from me, personal issues, school mainly, a play, general laziness, and the fact that this chapter has required more careful planning and scrutinizing than anything else I've written so far for this story, but I digress. We'll be hitting some heavy topics to keep in line with the depressed modicum it feels like Syrenet follows, transporting ourselves to the guys and their vacation at the cabin. It's time to know a few of our characters** ** _very_** **well. My review replies!**

 **Maxcy Leland- I pretty much thought of that twist last minute, but since I introduced Midna in Chapter 7, I needed a role for her and since Link's death was planned for last chapter since the beginning, Corrin would've had her executed, so this allows her to stay along for the long haul (or until I kill her...) *shhh* And good question! You'll get an answer to that very shortly. Aw yippee, I'm glad you're warming up to Robin! She's going to be everyone's rock in this story, and mine too, as when she's around, the scene is partially more lighthearted lol. Hope this chapter makes up for the wait.**

 **Retronym- Here's the thing Retro, it isn't super uber fast by** ** _my_** **standards, and all of my erroneous breaks in between here and there does little to help my case. I would type out every single chapter of Syrenet in one sitting but my hands can't do that, my brain surely can't, and I like my readers to get a chance in actually catching up in the piece, if that works. Your story is already very good, so don't be dissuaded. Leave that to me. Link isn't our main villain, far from it. A simple stepping stone and pawn in someone else's game, my dear friend. Glad you liked it!**

 **So, settle down kiddies and strap yourselves in. This shall be quite the ride but I expect, but this is the chapter that I feel will show off the skills I've learned this year as a writer and it is a good introduction into the spring season where this story is going to take prime dedication and focus (although my Game of Thrones fanfiction Dark Choir will be there too, I shan't forget that story lol). Enjoy Chapter #11: Tinsel on the Porch. Featuring a depressed blonde, a cheerful brunette, one bluenette who has PTSD, and one bluenette who needs beer cans and friends.**

* * *

Shulk stares at the refrigerator in the cabin's kitchen, gaze glazed over as if he's mulling over the fact the pictures dotted all over the pallid canvas could very well represent he and Fiora's old life. Before she... before she... he blinks, swallowing the depressed thought with the taste of sharp whiskey in a blue electric raspberry solo cup. No matter how hard he tries, his diamond eyes flicker over the photos of the president and the senator of New York. Corrin Etch and Cloud Gladwell. He's unsure why she has yet to change her name since the marriage and all, but since Shulk values his life halfheartedly, he isn't a betting man and does not want Corrin to chop his head off with a glare should he pose the question.

There's a picture of the couple, before Corrin's political victories, arm and arm, showing their great dental smiles in Cancun, tagged right in the center of the fridge. Shulk sneers at the photo, Cloud's sunbeam hair and perfectly tanned arms hugging Corrin in a vice as they smugly grin for the camera. He sloshes some of the whiskey in the cup at the picture. " _Screw you and your perfect life, madam president. What do I get, huh? Just a life full of mistakes and wrong turns. Fiora was you, you know. Then you ripped that all away_."

He imagines her standing in the foyer of the cabin, with her fluorescent pile of hair blowing in the wind, her puckered smile, her genuine hug she'd give him... Shulk feels a tear lapel down the side of his cheek, and to suppress the whim of human emotion, something in which he hates doing, the blonde clenches down on his tongue till the taste of lucid copper fills his mouth.

Shulk must've been doing the deed of biting down on his tongue for quite sometime as Fiora dissipates into an actual human body, that of Pit, the brunette walking forward with concern lacing his features. "Shulk?" he asks gently, placing a hand on the commander's shoulders. "Are you alright?" Pit is young, which Shulk intones darkly that he wants some of that youth, and because of his ability to be fit and youthful, he's charming and elusively kind in an angelic sort of way.

He gives a forced smile, raising his cup somewhat like a drunkard. The irony is, he _is_ a drunkard right now. "Nothing," he assures the kid. "I've been looking at the photos and they bring memories back."

Pit follows the gaze to the refrigerator, soft porcelain eyes lowering themselves to the floor after a moment. His white wings bristle against his back, the ones he adopted from that costume party that one Halloween which he has yet to take off. The brunette looks back at Shulk, face darkened and serious. "Good or bad memories, Shulk?" he asks concernedly.

All the Alpha commander of Syrenet can do is raise his cup once more, downing the rest of the bitter and satisfying liquid with a relinquishing sigh. He heads for the entrance to the cabin, turning back to face Pit in the shroud of darkness that is the kitchen. "I can't tell, Pit. It all depends on the empty cup and my emotions. Right now, it's bad. It could be any other emotion come five minutes from now if that's how my mind wants to work..." He turns away from the technician, exiting out the front door of the house.

The brunette runs a hand through his hair, shaking his head. He'll never understand the enigmatic blonde. Perhaps that's why he is known as an enigmatic human being. Pit rolls his eyes, mutters something about deranged hermits and whiskey, and vanishes further into the cabin, looking for a particular item.

On the porch, Shulk crumples the cup in his hand and throws it out onto the lawn. He lets out a loud yell to the sky, scaring the other two occupants on the porch half to death. On his right, Marth is sitting in a chair, a book in his lap as the bluenette scans the pages for a dashing tale of knights in shining armor. Or perhaps he's reading a book on astrology... Shulk hardly cares. Sitting in a rocking chair even further down the white picket fence porch is Ike, the man guzzling at the ever iconic Bud Light grasped in his hands.

Shulk quips a smile. Ike and beer are so synonymous with each other. If Corrin demands the gentlemen have to come up with a project logo, like a trademark brand for Fruit Loops' toucan, or an insignia for a sports team like the New York Yankees, Shulk knows where to find the man. The blonde also keeps in his head the fact that Ike Forgenson has quite the heart if you know how to dig down deep enough.

Ike has his phone clutched in his hands, playing the latest app that came out, and he's been on it like a teenage boy who can't stop texting his girlfriend. He lets out a chuckle, seeing the litter in the lawn; weeds and blades of grass start to cover up the solo cup like it is a lost memory. "You going to pick that up?" he directs his statement at Shulk, eyes twinkling.

The blonde stretches his arms back and lets out a satisfying gasp as the buds of tension pop in his joints. He lets out a resounding, "Nope!" The sound carries off into the wind, rocketing and reverberating around like metal pans and thunderstorms.

"Well, I recall a certain someone telling me the very same thing the day Roy arrived in D.C... about picking up their garbage." Ike's tone is jesting, Shulk knows it, but the blonde is unable to decipher why his face flashes a look of grimaced pain.

"That was different," Shulk responds, an air of indifference surrounding him. "We were inside a government paid building provided for us. Roy didn't need to think of us as slobs, like the little defunct group we are."

"We aren't _that_ defunct..." Ike groans into his hands.

Marth decides that this is the most amazing and perfect time to throw himself into the conversation by closing his book, placing it on his lap. "Oh no, Ike, we're dysfunctional alright. Lucina says in my ear all the time that if I wasn't her actual soldier, she'd haywire my brain."

"Well that's because you and your depressing talks over your nightmares causes everyone to either fear you or pity you. And after awhile, pity starts to turn into anger."

Shulk plops himself down onto the steps of the porch, bare feet getting tickled by the waves of grass blowing in the breeze, listening and grinning as Ike and Marth go at each other like squabbling birds or cats, if cats had perky, high-pitched voices. The two bluenette men argue over the degree what is constituted as depression, dysfunctional behavior, and defection. Shulk wishes the solo cup could reappear in his hands as a full cup of bourbon this time, and he realizes that the words his colleagues are fighting over all begin with the letter D.

Huh. The more you know.

Someone else joins the gentlemen on the porch, placing a new clear glass in Shulk's hand. The commander looks up to see Pit smiling down on him, a hand holding a glass outstretched. Shulk takes it begrudgingly. "That better be vodka..." he grumbles. He sniffs it, finding a surprising lack of alcoholic smell to it. It's a gift people are born with, the man believes. Shulk takes a sip, almost spitting it out. "Good lord in heaven, Pit! What is that stuff?"

Pit cannot try to hide his smile even if he tried. "Water, Mr. Roberts. You should try it sometimes." The blonde wonders why everyone in the building alternates between calling him by his first name or his title. It is annoying. Find one and stick to it.

"You don't need to call me a mister anything," Shulk tries dejecting the courtesy. "I'm hardly a gentleman. I'd go as far to say I'm even a _man_."

Marth and Ike's fight goes back down to simple accusations and sticking out your tongue at each other because you can't figure out what else to fight over when an alert pops on Ike's phone, given Marth gave up on them - phones, that is -, Pit has his inside, and Shulk turned his off last night and lost it ever since in the cabin. Ike sets his beer down, reading whatever notification came up. The other three men watch him in amused silence before he starts to break out into literal laughter. The laughter Shulk can only describe has hearty, with a hand over your stomach, the other wiping away tears you get from crying. It causes a neuron to fire off paranoid messages in the blonde's head. Ike hardly laughs, despite being a quote unquote 'nice guy'.

"What is it?" Pit asks, standing up to lean against one of the porch posts.

Ike scrolls over the notification once more, giving himself some time to regain his composure. He can hardly contain his laughter. "Roy- Roy got compromised in Boston..." he says.

Marth blanches. "And you have the audacity to _laugh_ at that? God, Ike, the beer is getting to your head."

Shulk mirrors Pit's position by standing, arms crossed over his chest. "And?" he inquires. The man has only known Roy for two weeks, give or take, but he's still a new recruit, he's still new to the family, and he belongs in that particular family. The boy, though Roy Arcadia can hardly be considered a boy, is fresh meat in a dangerous political landscape like the labyrinth of Washington D.C, so for Ike to laugh, it is cruel, especially by the bluenette's own standards.

The commander of Charlie Squad holds a finger up to recollect the details. "Firstly, Corrin's assumptions about Link Collins were correct. The man is a rat. Or, should I say _was_ a rat."

"Was?" Pit echoes. "The guy's dead?"

"Yeah. Shot in the head, nonetheless," Ike shrugs. "He got duped!"

"How?" Marth stirs uncomfortably in his own chair. He's been sitting for too long, he almost resembles that of a wax statue at times when he gets immersed in a new book.

Ike looks at his comrades. "Link had a very important meeting, and Roy got caught right in the middle of it," his gaze turned to Marth. "You remember that Sheik Braring girl? She's the one who orchestrated Oklahoma City... well, he was her latest client, selling her great merchandise like flamethrowers, grenades, and other lovely weapons. Roy's mission, which Shulk detailed for him, was to see whether or not Link's accusation of playing for two different teams was true. Sure enough... it was."

"Then what happened?" Shulk yelps, clenching the railing. He's scared for what comes next, if Ike's original statement is anything to go by. "You said that Roy's cover had been blown. What happened?"

"Link tortured the redhead into spilling information," Ike answers. "He plays a few mind games with Ness, starts to nearly mutilate Roy... and Snake swoops in to save the day, with a little bit of help from within."

"Within?" Marth frowns.

"It turns out that the FBI themselves had their own little mole in the covert ranks of Link's bodyguards, a girl named Midna Nye. She was trying to get some dirt on Link but was proving to be unsuccessful. In drops Roy, not even two days later, and he's digging in a damn goldmine. Link acted all reckless, and Snake killed him for it."

"What- what of Roy?" the commander of Alpha Squad steps closer to Ike, a lowered hand outstretched over the white wood, as if his body movements are to be any assuage against his crippling fear.

"Roy's fine," Ike responds, and the light in his eyes goes out as he mulls over the injuries. "He's got a cut near his thyroid which may require real surgery... a stab wound in the leg, and a concussion."

Pit tugs at his collar, face gone white as his blizzard wings. "I'm- I'm going to go splash my face with some water. I'll be back guys."

Marth and Shulk watch the techie shrug off into the house, almost like a kid rejected by Santa Claus. The two direct their attention back to Ike who has reached the end of the notification. "Who's it by?" Marth poses the question. It isn't like he's not believing the words being read to him, the guy just would like some confirmation and a way to quell the booming heart inside his chest.

"Report written by FBI director Snake Karlo, sent out to all Syrenet and FBI agents about an hour ago. Because we're out in the middle of God knows where, we have bad signal reception, and I just got the email." Ike turns his phone off, placing it on the table next to the rocking chair.

Shulk is not letting his comrade off the hook that easily, and he slinks up the stairs and down the railing to Ike's side, eyes wide and bright in a blazing fury, akin to that of a supernova. The blonde is trying to formulate the words to express his anger. He's never been one to find something to always say. When Corrin drops the news of his now dead wife in his lap one afternoon while sharing Starbucks, he cries for over an hour. When there's the addition of a dead baby in the mix, the sobbing turns into mourning that lasts a month. When his bonus gets cut while he's working seventy hours a week straight out of college to help his ailing mother dying of cancer to have an easy go, he's crying to his girlfriend at the time - no Fiora - and lets life move on. But here? He wants to give Ike a little bit of his mind, and if the bluenette minds, well, he can go and deal with it somewhere else.

"Explain yourself. Now!" Shulk demands.

"Excuse me?" Ike retorts.

"You never said why you found Roy getting compromised to be funny? I don't think you ever mentioned in the ten plus years I have known you that there's humor to you in the potential loss of life with someone you know in the Syrenet world. Because, trust me Ike, we've lost quite the number of coworkers and brothers and sisters in this whole project!"

Ike's face turns a shade of purple, half from embarrassment, the other in putrid anger which causes him to stand up, getting in Shulk's grill, so close their noses practically spark electricity off of each other. "I find it even funnier, Shulk, that you, just two weeks ago were doubting the kid alongside I after you had just met him. I'm not happy Roy got his cover blown, we don't know the whole story. I reckon he made a rookie mistake and is now going to learn from it. I may have a nice heart and all, Shulk, but I have a backbone and realize how important it is to have your sides covered."

"But to laugh at receiving the news?" Shulk raises an eyebrow, backing up slightly as the blonde is partially intoxicated and he isn't a good fighter when he's drunk. "That's a whole new side to you."

The bluenette hangs his head low, quipping another classic grin that causes Marth to snort in disgust, rolling his eyes. "Shulk, I don't think you ever got a special visit from madam president when you were in the hospital. Corrin marches into my hospital room at near midnight one evening while I was recovering to preach the gospel to me on this fancy idea she had. She wanted a new recruit, and I was all for it. She starts getting into using that person as one of Link's ruses to possibly blow a fuse, and then I call her bluff. Corrin knows, as she's that type of woman, how Syrenet would look when fresh meat is thrown to the wolves, but she didn't heed my warning. I said the whole operation would blow up in her face, and she said I'd be eating crow two weeks from when the recruit arrived," Ike picks up his phone, checking the date. "I can now look at her in the face and call _her_ bluff like I did back in the hospital room. It had nothing to do with Roy, Shulk. I think the alcohol is muddling up your brain."

Shulk lets Ike's words ebb over his ears before the blonde falls back onto the porch, a wild ruse of laughter breaking through and piercing clouds like jets. The two bluenette men watch with a distant expression, Ike going over the things he'll say to his boss once the man recovers. Shulk stands back up, wiping tears from his eyes. He's unstable, rocky, but caring all the same and there's nothing the blonde can do about it. Ike purses his lips to respond, but Marth beats him to the punch.

"What in the hell was that?" Marth's gaze is sharp, fiery, and void of all warmth. He particularly dislikes people moving about in front of him as if they're being exorcised of demons that aren't stirring within their soul.

All the commander of Beta Squad gets in return is a hapless shrug. "I just love that I got proved wrong by Ike once again. Here I am _thinking_ that Ike is laughing because of Roy's poor misfortune, which you got onto him for! But..." his expression falters. "It looks like I'm wrong as per usual," Shulk twists his body around, looking for his solo cup. "Where is my drink?" he roars.

Shulk shuffles off back inside, however the man then stops at the entrance to the cabin. Ike and Marth stir in their seats. "Yes?" Ike prods gently, knowing full and well the blonde has something to say, he's just afraid to say, he's afraid to say that whatever may come out of his mouth will reverse the change of time, most likely.

"I lied..." Shulk says, voice hoarse, the complete antithesis of the voice full of vibrancy and vibrato as he laughed.

"Lied? About what?" Marth asks gently, hand going for the book. He's a man who can read and listen at the same time, except when Ike puts his shoes on tables which the guy really likes to do for some reason, but that's a different story for a different time.

The commander of Alpha Squad returns to his perch on the porch, head distended, shoulders down, eyes losing their sparkle. "I lied about saying how Fiora and I couldn't have kids. When she died..." his voice catches in his throat, and several tears start flowing. Ike reaches into his pocket, pulling out a crumpled up tissue. He hands it to Shulk who takes it eagerly, dabbing at and around his eyes. "Fiora was several months pregnant with someone- someone else's child..." he begins to sob.

Instead of Marth feeling partially elated at knowing Fiora could in fact bear children, it is the first part of Shulk's last sentence that causes him to freeze and then snap in a bucket of boiling rage. "Someone _else's_ child? She cheated on you?" His hands are clenching the side of his chair, knuckles white as the chair's paint, the porch's paint, and the seething fury that is blinding his vision.

Ike admonishingly places a hand on his comrade's shoulder, pressing him back down in the chair. His friend's skin is bristling with warmth underneath his light shirt, the former's fingertips are cold and senseless, sending nerve wracking shudders down Marth's body. "I hardly imagine that's the case. Shulk?"

"She opted to be someone else's surrogate," Shulk explains, voice nearly impossible to hear over the gusts of wind blowing over the cabin. "This lovely couple, God, I can't even remember their names, came up to us all those years ago when Fiora and I were vacationing out in Arizona. They are boggled down in children, two at their heels, the dad holding one in his arms, the mother holding two... that family had _five_ kids while Fiora and I couldn't even have one. It turns out the two of us had been staring at them all while we were waiting for our flight..." Shulk cracks a grin. "We were so jealous of them, even though I imagine that woman, whatever her name was, went through the worst of pains to produce the kids she held so lovingly. We hadn't looked into the options of being a surrogate because Corrin didn't like us having kids, which is understandable. Family- family triumphs over a mission sometimes," the blonde catches his words off, looking into the distance. Ike tries following his friend with wherever he is staring at, but it must be something beyond the world of the living, an afterlife somewhere perhaps, where there are gilded and golden streets covered in glitter and diamond gemstones. "Fiora and I agreed, shook hands, and two weeks later we get a call from her doctor that a specific sample from some man in Washington state had a very lucky surprise for us all. We did the process, and it worked... Fiora had a kid..." That, however is all the man can take before collapsing into a pool of tears, sobs racking his entire body as Shulk slides down the railing to sit in a heap at the end of the porch.

Neither Marth or Ike move until the former puts his book down again, leaning forward so his hands are on his knees. "Do you want to go and lie down? We don't have to go out to eat, if you don't want to, Shulk."

"No," Shulk wipes at his nose, pausing the crying momentarily. "I've already checked every nook and cranny in this cabin; there's no food. I don't think Cloud has vacationed here in eons. _Several_ eons," he then corrects. "I don't know all too much about how surrogate mothers work and stuff, but the couple were more than fertile, which they had said to us one evening over dinner when Fiora and I were off. They said we could keep the child, just the one, if Fiora hated child birth," he laughs again, and this time it is a true laugh that is airy and light. "I have never met a woman who actually liked child birth until after it was over and that had a squealing ball of joy, all red in the face, in their arms. We settled on naming her Delilah. Fiora personally had many other names, but because we were so lucky to have _even_ met the couple, we wanted their, that being the couple's, opinion. They gave us a whole list of options- Mark, Joseph, Josephine, Dane, Jeremiah..." he breaks off to give a snicker. "All these guy names, even when we told them it'd be a girl... so they then settled on wanting to name her after famous songs and..."

"You get Delilah," Ike jokes along with the blonde.

Marth glares at him. " _Not the time..._ " his gaze reads.

Shulk stands, feeling much better once again, though not by any work of his own except spilling privy information. "Yeah. Fiora and I were going to have quit Syrenet once the baby had been born. It was just a few more months, too," his expression hardens again, causing Marth to tense as he feels the man is about to cry again, and the crying is all for a good reason. "But I can no longer complain and wish about having a kid again, right? It was just a fairytale. And I'm glad it ended."

He finishes his speech abruptly, nodding, storming back inside the cabin. Marth exhales, runs a hand through his hair, and then goes to sit on the steps facing the open expanse of the cabin's front lawn. Ike follows suit, finishing his beer, leaving it sitting on the table. He sits down alongside Marth and the two warring Oklahoma buddies stare off into the bone beach blue expanse of sky.

The cabin is nestled in a nice crook of the forest surrounding them. Emerald leaved trees rise high above the foreground, the tips stretching towards the halcyon sun light bulb with longing. A lake rests about a hundred yards from the cabin, which is surrounded by other dense woodland, and Marth swears he sees a cottontail of a rabbit blur by in the wood. Everything is so calm and serene, it almost reminds Marth of home. Home. The word is foreign in his mind. He's unable to pinpoint home exactly, as it has been so long since he actually went back to where he grew up. Home used to be a town in the rural state of South Dakota where you witnessed thunderstorms and tornadoes be created in the blink of an eye, do some destruction, and then those phenomena of nature vanished back into the belched black expanse of sky in which they came from. Marth is used to sitting on a tractor, tilling the soil for his dad's farm, and letting the sounds of nothing fill his ears except for motorized tractor noises. He's lonely, and when the bluenette is introduced to the big city slicker, the taxis, the skyscrapers, and all the _people_ , he's unable to move and emote any other emotion than awestruck, reverential wonder.

He's unsure whether or not to say Syrenet is home now, that D.C is his true place of residence. There is nothing warm about the slate cube that towers over the D.C skyline. Corrin says there's a hearth for everyone in the government in that building, but all Marth feels is cold dearth, a death that stirs in the walls and whispers from the floors. It reminds of a library, a place meant for enjoyment, that is abandoned with rustled pages from books free floating in the oak prison.

Ike lets out a belch, and immediately blushes. "Excuse me..." his face goes as scarlet as the gorgeous sunset.

Marth smirks, and stares outward into silence. He is frontier gazing. It is a little activity he coins the term of once when he was in college; you plop your keister on a patch of grass somewhere and just stare up and outwards. It is enjoyable and passes the time. Although his friends mutter that it is nothing more than mere watching the clouds, the bluenette shakes his head and quips a smile as if he has one of the most amazing secrets to tell in the entire world. Frontier gazing is looking beyond the clouds, by imagining the vast stretch of land further than that, into the constellations of space and purely _being_ in everywhere at once. The frontier has evolved from the Wild West.

"That one smelled..." Marth waves at the air around his nose.

"Whatcha doing anyways? I'd like to have _some_ company while we're out here, y'know," Ike jests. "I'm lonely," he says, his tone sounding slightly wounded.

"I'm frontier gazing." his friends responds, and he leaves it at that. Marth places a hand underneath his jaw and looks into the spaces between the trees, the ripples underneath the water, the plumes of dust from a critter stampeding around on the ground. He's content. Ike, however, is not. He isn't as... deep, which is a word the commander of Beta Squad would be okay using.

"Frontier _what_?" he repeats, brow furrowed in confusion.

"Staring at the horizon and what lies beyond it," Marth answers. "It's fun. You should try it sometimes."

"That's funny. You said the same thing about reading and I think we all know how that one ended up, Marth."

Marth shudders from the wind, and kicks the step on the porch as he swings his legs back and forth like he's a toddler once more. He rolls his neck on his shoulders until it cracks. The pain is not worth it in the end. "That's because you never want to try something new. All I see you do is drink beer, fire guns, and be nice to everyone around you, " he remarks snidely, bringing his knees to his chest. Ike opens his mouth to snap out a harsh retort. "Easy there tiger, I didn't say there's anything wrong with that either."

Marth sighs, and lets himself readjust the needed pieces inside his skin, whilst trying to submerge the unwanted rest into the blue of his bloodstream to clot until he once again has room enough. Only when he has a mind to once again allow that process will it happen again, that's how it has to go. He imagines that he's stuck in a tub with dirty water that lapels the side of the tub, a stinky mess that reeks of copper, flesh, more copper, and even more flesh. Marth jokes inside his brain. " _Maybe I really, just really need a bath_."

The dirty water from the tap is cool, smelling like dirt and damp growing things you find on the sunrise sides of dilapidated buildings, rotwood barn houses, secret pathways behind the garbage dump. It splashes up his forearms, wetting his rolled up sleeves, stinging his cuts and soothing heated bruises. It's almost as if his mother, lord he miser her, was tenderly kissing him, slowly and softly enough where it's almost as if her lips were phantoms.

An amniotic lull fills Marth's mind, hushing the worst of the wordless murmuring, leaving the world muted save for his own heart beat and a dull, surf like a roar echoing in his ears. It's why he doesn't at first notice the rustling, or the sound. Prowling shapes that don't quite reflect in the mirror startle him now, unlike before when he was used to them.

He winces, shutting his eyes, the sound of shrapnel filling up the void there. Ike's voice is a muffled shout, then fragments of a grenade interrupt the shadow of Marth's vision.

Too lost in thaw of the waters, the sudden noise - the opening and slamming of stall doors, restless pacing of heavy boots - comes through a condensed decade of time that stood still and when it finally reaches him, he clenches the side of the tub. It is all Marth can do to ignore the nervous jolt down his spine, and he can't stop the pit opening up in his belly, a portal to black seamed faces with deadlight irises. He tries to keep his attention on the water circling the drain, the imaginary drain that is getting interrupted by the explosions of a battle that have never existed.

He turns off the faucet, the rusted knob whining shrilly. The smoky walls eat the sound to end all and leave only an afterthought that couldn't even be called a memory in his ears.

The farthest stall from the door cracks thunderously closed, when in reality it is Ike stretching and turning to face his best friend, rebounding harshly into the stone divide, momentum bleeding off into an abused swing. Marth looks at Ike in a fake mirror, he's actually just facing him like another normal human being, dark eyed and carefully blank; without his contacts he can't see the lines that make up Ike's expression, but there's a guilty shuffle, jacketed shoulders shrugging awkwardly. "Sorry..." Ike mutters. He hasn't apologized in quite some time over things that are entirely out of his control.

Flicking excess water off his hands, Marth turns and leans the small of his back on the porcelain basin, on the back of a new step, chin tilted down to keep away the scattering sun glare streaming from holes in the roof. "S'alright," he answers. Then, Marth frowns. "What are you sorry for?"

"For not realizing you were in trouble until it was too late," Ike groans into his hands. "You were suffering because of Oklahoma City and I'm going about my normal day like a jolly fellow, and you're at Syrenet falling apart, trying to build yourself back together and I wasn't there for you. I know we had that conversation at like four in the morning already kind of alleviated this, but it doesn't hurt me to say it again. I'm supposed to be your best friend, the guy watching your six, and I couldn't even do that."

He tastes pennies, the gritted stink of copper and rotting blood. Ike licks his lips, trying to get the taste off. Marth nods, unsure of what to say. "I'm not mad at you. _I_ should've said something earlier, too."

Ike grins wrily, a crooked flash of teeth behind thinned lips. A loaded smile stamped in unpleasant sodality. "Slipped my grip with what I said. I'm not..." he tries speaking. Marth looks at Ike, and thinks he is made of feathers, twisted and warped out of line which are insubstantial everywhere but alongside his shadow; rust scratches into his ribcage like a recursive disease, breath swelling over sounds he has no control of, over voices he has no name for, and Marth imagines him being pulled taut. Soldered and stitched over and over and over: no real repair in sight. The smile fades, all the lines on his face collapsing to hide behind his hands. "I just can't think straight. I'm sorry, I'm-"

The split light along the floor and walls wavers as if candle flame breathed on by cool winter winds, bony limbed trees scrape loudly over the tin roof, and it feels like the silence has cracked and begun to run over all those raw wounds. "You don't have to apologize. It's fine to leave it as is." Marth shoves his still damp hands into his pockets, staring back at the horizon. And he means it as an affirmation, forgiveness.

And he finds that he means it.

Marth then changes his thought and presses his forehead against Ike's shoulder. Ike gently, though unsure of whether or not this constituted as inappropriate, places his hand on Marth's right shoulder, giving him a slight squeeze, till he retracts and both men look off into the horizon.

All is calm, and this calmness lasts for a good thirty seconds before Pit bustles back out onto the porch, completely out of breath. Both men turn around, faces that of bewilderment.

"I finally found it!" Pit exclaims wildly, eyes jubilant and triumphant.

"Found what?" Marth asks.

The boy is holding a box that is a good ten by ten, propped up by one leg and both arms. Pit turns the entire box upside down and dumps its contents onto the porch. Ike and Marth's gaze is met with heaps and heaps of golden tinsel, the decorative Christmas lace falling out and piling up in a fluorescent lemonade mountain. Ike gags, holding his nose. "It smells like a rat died in there!"

"It probably is like twenty years old," Pit says, though this is no deterrence towards him. "I heard rumors from Robin that Cloud and Corrin left some of their old Christmas stuff at this cabin and so I decided to go sleuthing. This white porch is completely boring, and I think we need some color."

"So you picked yellow. And... only yellow," Marth rubs his head. "Great choice."

"Hey, it took me like three days to find this sucker."

"You realize that we are staying at Cloud's cabin... their _private_ getaway, Pit," Ike speaks slowly to the Syrenet technician as if slow speech is going to get the message any clearer through his skull. "We don't own this property and I don't think they'll be too keen on the fact you went through and made a mess of their decorations... nor the fact you personally spiffed up the place, no matter how drab and boring this cabin is. Do you want us to get fired? I kind of like my job, dude!"

"And it isn't even Christmas!" Marth points out.

Pit huffs a tuff of mahogany hair out of his eyes, his orbs sparkling with satisfaction and pure bliss. "I don't care. Let me decorate! We're having tinsel on the porch!"

"Just wait until Shulk gets a load of this..." Ike snickers to his partner in crime, elbowing him in the ribs.

As the sun slowly starts to set, Pit races around the porch, tinsel following him in a diverted wake of gold. He pins and laces the decorative spokes of plastic and thread along the railing and down the steps. A good chunk of the pile is dedicated to surrounding the window panes and windows in a halcyon trim, and it turns out that this particular set of tinsel is special in that it lights up.

The sun has sunk beneath the sky far enough. Pit's grin is devilish and wicked. He flicks a switch inside the house, the porch erupting into a Broadway stage of bright lights, golden trim, and Christmas bliss. Marth and Ike stumble back together, the former smiling and the latter just watches, cerulean eyes wide and soon he starts smiling too, clapping over his head.

"Wow! It looks really good, Pit!"

Ike digs into his pocket for his phone, going to the camera app. He snaps a picture of the porch, Pit standing in the middle, hands thrown up to the air as if he couldn't give a single care in the entire world. His face emotes genuine joy and Ike cannot help but cry somewhat at seeing the dreary cabin, which is meant to be the means of an escape, lit up so perfectly.

Marth squeezes Ike on the shoulder. "For all the sadness we endured on this mini vacation, I swear this makes up for it tenfold."

The commander is hard pressed to argue.

The trio laughs, and their laughs whip into the wind of their tale of tinsel on the porch.

All, even if it is just for a single moment, is right with the world.

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 **And there we are ladies and gentlemen! That was Chapter #11: Tinsel on the Porch of Syrenet. And yippee, it is the longest chapter at 7k! Well, so far, as there may be chapters way down the line that are even longer than this one, but oh well we'll get there. I think this has been my personal favorite chapter from the four conversations that all happened in one lineate scene... and that the heartbreaking truth is, these four gentlemen are all hurting and Syrenet is doing little to help fix that. When I originally thought of the chapter title, it was going to be something beyond random, but I feel like, now, looking it that there is an evolution of sorts to be had- it nicely introduces us to some main players in Arc 2, which is only going to get worse from here on out folks. I also hope this chapter was more than worth the wait, as I again supremely apologize for taking so long (I don't know what is with me these days lol)**

 **I also have a new poll on my profile! Just like when I wrote Icarus Chronicle, I had a poll on your favorite main characters in Icarus Chronicle because of a small cast of eight to ten characters. Because Syrenet has an ensemble cast of seventeen, I listed all of them, in which there is a spoiler alert for one character who hasn't been revealed yet, but all the same it is there. Go cast your vote, which you are allowed to pick your four favorites, if you even have any at this stage of the game! And please review! I'd love to respond to more reviews next chapter given how much I brought up, but I digress. I'm planning on Sunday / Monday being the next day for an update, with Chapter #12: Ness's Mistake. Uh oh... anyways, thank you so much for reading! I hope you all have an amazing day! Love you all! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm of Writing**


	12. Chapter 12: Ness's Mistake

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, #12: Ness's Mistake. Last chapter we had our longest one yet, a Tinsel on the Porch capping at a whopping 7k, and the fact I even did that made me beyond happy. I have to continue sloughing through Arc 2 and I'm hoping to give it as much impact as I can possibly can. With Chapter 11 we got to delve some more into the minds of Shulk, Marth, Ike, and Pit with their troublesome times and other hurting factors; Shulk's rash lying, Fiora's dead child, Marth's PTSD and how he tries to cope with, Ike's apology, and furthermore, Pit trying to brighten the mood. This chapter we will be shifting gears back to some other popular characters, and of one we haven't seen in awhile. Review reply!**

 **CrashGuy01- You're consistently reviewing, and I want to say thank you so much to that. I am glad you enjoyed the chapter, I am hoping that my details aren't all recycled and contrite if you know what I mean. I think my strongest suit, besides perhaps descriptions is my characterization which I try and pull through with conversations, as I really just have pages and pages filled with conversations of characters in my stories that have happened, are happening in stories people are reading as I post, stories that will come, and even conversations that will never be added but I thought of for the sake of fun. Yep, Link Collins being dead is... it was meant for a reason, and he'll be remembered as people, including myself, loved him. This chapter is a little bit tamer, but it reveals a lot! And don't be afraid to tell me things you didn't like or may want changed. I don't seem to get a good enough balance of criticism and praise, because I know my writing is far from perfect. Enjoy the chapter!**

 **As I said, this chapter will hit on a lot of things that may be close to home for a certain Syrenet employee, but I'll try to address it as well as I can. Enjoy Chapter #12: Ness's Mistake.**

* * *

Lucas's laugh fills the surrounding basement of Syrenet headquarters like dynamite explosions in abandoned mines. The blonde AI Unit wipes at his eyes, sitting down on his metal disk as he stares across the table at the other AI Unit, Ness Morrison. Over in the corner, Pit Icarus eyes the two Syrenet inventions slyly, his face telling. He had turned both of them on for the sake of having someone keep him company while he worked.

Ness's face is beet red, and he takes a moment to regain his composure. His entire frame is shrouded in a sky blue mist from the disk he's standing on while the two AI Unit friends gaff and joke around. "No, I don't think you should say that to Shulk. He may explode. Haha!" he laughs, clapping down on his stomach.

"I think he'll appreciate the joke," Lucas rebuttals, an ever telling grin plastered across his face. "Besides, we share the same hair color. A wisp of lemonade, or a patch of sunflowers!" the AI Unit pauses, eyes shutting briefly, the telling smile softening some to the face one a baby would make if amused. "I'd love to hold a sunflower..." Lucas lays down on his stomach, hands underneath his chin, kicking his legs lazily behind him, thinking of sunflowers. When's the last time he's ever held a sunflower? Has he ever held a sunflower before?

That causes an eyebrow to rise on the dark haired boy's face, eyes glistening with excitement. "How's the garden coming along?"

Due to Pit's brilliance, and the original creator of Syrenet's skill years ago, the AI Units were given their own worlds to experiment around in, that when the units were turned off, they traversed a landscape only seen by themselves and individualistic to each other. Such as, when Snake used to have an AI Unit of his own, although Lucas now forgets the AI Unit's name, hers was a rugged volcanic landscape that she'd spend hours scrounging through, finding 'specimens'. Sadly none of what she found could she share because it was a part of the Internet and not necessarily wholesome.

"It's going great! Thanks Ness!" Lucas beams. "A few azaleas bloomed by the front porch of the house, and I even started an apple orchard. I'm gonna be sick of apple pie come next week..."

"Knowing your sweet tooth," Ness guffaws. "It'll be a day!"

If the blonde could push his friend, he would. Lucas kicks at the dirt around his disk. He frowns momentarily, watching Pit over in the corner, looking so lonely. "Hey, Pit," he calls out. "Do you want Ness and I to teleport over to you so you aren't working so... lonesome?"

"That's alright Lucas, you wouldn't be able to understand this..." Pit's voice carries back to him.

Ness closes his eyes, makes a smug smile, and opens them again with satisfaction glowing in his onyx orbs. "The calculation is forty-two..." he shouts.

"Excuse me?" Pit retorts.

"Forty-two," he reiterates. "The answer is forty-two."

The technician for Syrenet swivels around in his chair, walking back over to the duo, hands on his hips. "And how exactly did you figure that one out without looking at it?"

"I hacked into the computer system and saw the problem you were working on with that software," Ness smiles at him, innocent as ever, when truth be told the chip on his shoulder rose higher and higher till it surmounted into a mountain. "So, since _I_ know you aren't all that great at calculus, and that there aren't any calculators down here, you'd struggle."

Lucas claps his hands together as he collapses into a fit of giggles at the facial expression currently passing over Pit's face, mouth hung open in partial awe, eyes however blazing with a dull fury. Pit swallows an emotion that the blonde reads as fear. "Well, Mr. Ness I-Know-It-All, if you think that _cheating_ is going to make Syrenet's devices, which are used to help the entire world out, better, then you're dead wrong."

"Hey, it was just for fun..."

"Fun that could get a person killed..." Pit snaps, returning to his chair.

The two AI Units drown in silence for a moment, until Lucas bursts out laughing again, overcome with hilarity. "Smooth..." he comments.

Ness shrugs. "Eh. I've been on edge lately, with Roy and all. I haven't gotten to see how he's doing over at the hospital. It's been two days and I can't say that I'm not worried."

If the tension in the room was not dark and brooding before, Ness's mentioning of the events in Boston darken the entire room. Goosebumps erupt all over Lucas's skin and he hugs himself tight. Pit is immersed back in his work that he does not hear the offhanded comment, and Lucas frowns, something he needs to stop doing, as they can cause wrinkles. Wrinkles for someone who technically is eleven is not a good facial feature.

He tugs at the end of his cardinal and halcyon stripped shirt. "Ness... I've been meaning to ask you-"

"Boston?" Ness guesses, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Y- yeah..." heat floods and rises into Lucas's neck, who surely is blushing. He doesn't like when Ness knows exactly how he's feeling. The two do not have some ability to read minds or whatever, a freaky thing many magicians in the world could only dream and fathom of having. Ness turns out to be quite the sucker for knowing how people feel or what they want before one opens their mouth.

"Well, we've got all day to talk about whatever you want. I'm all ears."

Lucas licks his lips, all of a sudden missing his garden. He tries to think of sunflowers, but all that gets in the way is Ness's rugged face that is scorched and burnt and blackened and bruised and Lucas cries out, biting down on his hand. The blonde tries to stop the depressing thoughts, the malicious and horrific visions, and he clamps down on his tongue soon after that. Copper fills his mouth, the sharp twang and ersatz taste of blood, grimy and aloof. "I-" he stumbles over his words. Though Lucas Dio is beyond his supposed eleven years of age as an AI Unit, his mind is programmed to be as childish and naïve and sweet as possible. Dark, brooding thoughts are not often racing inside his brain.

Ness senses his trouble, shifting to the edge of his disk so the two can be a few centimeters closer at the very least. "Lucas?"

"What happened in Boston? To Roy, I mean?" Lucas asks, eyes brimming with tears. Human suffering is not unknown to the blonde, however it is foreign.

The other AI Unit steps back, face devoid of emotion. "I- I'm not quite sure of how you want me to address that."

"I'm curious," Lucas repeats, face rising up somewhat with a more serious look plastered across it. "Shulk hasn't answered any of my questions about it and I'm purely wondering... if Roy is alright."

Ness's face softens, eyebrows lowering down to their normal position. "Even though I feel like no one programmed you to be caring, you have the most gentle heart one can ask for. Roy's fine, Lucas. He's injured, is all. Madam Corrin is giving a two week rest before he's needed again for some other project. It means _I_ get two weeks of leisure as well. You might have to go with Shulk somewhere if need be."

"No, that's not what I'm asking," the blonde presses his lips together firmly, shaking his head in dissent. "I want to know exactly _what_ happened over there in Boston. What happened for Roy to get injured."

"Oh."

The dark haired AI Unit is silent for a few moments, though to Lucas they feel as if hours are slowly ticking by. There's never enough assurance one can give him that things will end up alright. "I see. Well... Roy's mission was to find out whether or not Link Collins, a beneficiary Syrenet used for weapons, was selling his merchandise as contraband to the rebel forces across the country to go against our foundation. We discovered that he had indeed been doing this and we tried warning Snake Karlo, the boss of the FBI. However, in Roy's haste and panic, he got ourselves caught. Link, several hours later, tried interrogating him on what he sent out, and he threatened me as well."

"Link?" Lucas's eyes go wide. "How- I-"

"There's nothing Link could've done besides destroy the disk that'd hurt me in any physical way," Ness blanches, almost throwing up at the next thought. "So, the next best thing to do was have me watch as he mutilated and began cutting up Roy. He'd ask a question, I didn't answer, Roy didn't answer, and so Link went to work. This lasted for a few minutes until Snake arrived as the one reinforcement and saved us. Turns out there was someone from the FBI also infiltrating the ranks in Boston, and she too turned on Link when things became..." he struggles for the word. "Dicey."

"What are Roy's," Lucas swallows his disgust and fear. "Injuries?"

Ness starts ticking them off by counting on his fingers, though the expression placated on his face is hardly one of genuine thought, moreso horror at the remembrance and the scrunching of the nose. "A stab wound to the leg. Mild concussion. A cut from the earlobe down to the thyroid gland. Bruises, a hurt rib, though it isn't broken... Link got to Roy good and definitely punished him for it."

"He survived all that?" the blonde's tone of voice is incredulous, eyes as wide as saucers.

"Roy's rather resilient. He doesn't know when he's down. I suppose that makes him reliable in a way that he's stalling, though he doesn't know it yet."

Lucas looks at his best friend with a face of awestruck reverence. He wishes to be Ness, partially. Just, how he is so brave and smug and short with those that he does not like, knowing fully well where his future may end up as a deserted disk in a pile full of trash in a scrap yard; another metallic piece of junk that has outlived its purpose is where the AI Units are headed. The blonde aspires to be more than this gentle loving kid, he enjoys nature, he would rather enjoy fighting and mustering up the defense to fight back against tormentors who wish to hurt Shulk. He loves Shulk more than anything, the one person he calls a dad while he's stuck inside a program's body. Lucas knows that Ness loves Roy Arcadia too, though the dark haired AI Unit hates to admit it, as showing loving emotions towards people is something he _wasn't_ programmed with.

That is the second goal in Lucas's time as an AI Unit. The blonde wants to break free from the mold, to enact against orders... no longer does he desire being another oiled cog in the ever winding machine that stops only when all the other pieces break too. If Lucas is defunct, he needs and wants the entire operation to stop. It isn't meant to be a snap of the fingers and then getting replaced.

"I-" Lucas opens his mouth to respond when he is interrupted by the power going out. The light in the center of the room blinks momentarily before turning to a black void of dust and flies. The other lights hanging in the room all shut off, including Pit's computer which elicits a wicked howl from the technician. Lucas and Ness's bases of their disks illuminate a neon raspberry electric blue, half of the room drowning in a blueberry sea. Pit slides back from the desk, running a hand through his hair.

"Dammit..." he groans. "Now I've got to go and find which power box died. I really don't want to reroute the whole mainframe..." Pit laments to no one in particular. He shrugs off to the elevator, which is glowing a stunning fluorescent as the backup generator for the basement kicks into gear.

Ness's eyes glaze over briefly, while the elevator doors close shut. He taps himself into the intercoms, which due to Syrenet's building wiring, is separated from the original power grid as communication is critical in a crisis. Lucas observes Ness going to work, mouth hanging open. "Pit, it is Breaker 12 on floor nine," he announces over the intercom throughout the whole building, which is currently empty as it is early, _early_ in the morning and no one arrives to Syrenet earlier than Pit. "I think it is the green and red wires that snapped, something intertwined them on accident." Ness says.

"Thank you..." comes Pit's voice from the ceiling, and then in a whisper, "Smart-ass..."

"Language!" Ness chides the technician.

Lucas looks around the room, noting that he truly cannot see anything more than four to five inches in front of his face as there's such little light. "Man, without light, it looks like a bog down here." His words go out, but Ness is not noticing as he's bent on something that Lucas cannot see.

"Hey... that's weird..." Ness comments randomly.

"What?"

"Because of the power outage, my file screen is randomized and there are folders here that I haven't seen before."

Something unsettling stirs over Lucas's skin, and just like before, he is truly, _really_ missing that garden of his. "Oh."

Ness's eyes search over his 'screen' in front of him, detailing multiple folders and files of Syrenet and government operations. His eyes glance over something that raises more than just his attention, but a feeling of dread. "What's this?"

"You find something?"

"Do- do you recognize this name, Lucas?" Ness asks. He rereads over it. "A... Fiora Roberts?"

Lucas balks a little, the name reminding him of so many things in a dark past he wishes that he can simply move on from. "Yeah... that's um... Shulk's ex-wife. She died while on a mission to Detroit. Why?"

"One of the files has her name on it. It says it's classified."

"Are you going to look at it?"

"I don't know. It's the only file in the collection that I have where it has a Syrenet employee's name... so it must be important."

"You can have fun with that, then. If the power outage messed up your regularly functioning systems, who knows what happened to our programmed worlds. I need to go and check up on my garden. The azaleas are probably all dead."

Lucas's disk blips off, the blue shroud disappearing all over the room while, over in his corner, Ness's eyes widen in horror.

"NO!" Ness screams at his screen.

The room goes dark.

* * *

Corrin lowers her shades as she steps out of the limousine, giving pleasantries and courtesies to the driver. She waits patiently for Robin to step out of the other side before the car peels away, leaving a plume of ashy smoke in its wake. The president coughs, tilting herself away from the air pollution. Her vice president matches her stride to stand side by side with her as they gaze at the mansion in which the dinner party for tomorrow was to be taking place.

The house or mansion, Corrin sometimes meshed the two words together and called it a 'housion', was not necessarily large in terms of being tall. It stands at only a single floor in height, but its width and length is unparalleled to any building Corrin herself as seen in recent years. Its white coat of paint makes it glisten like a fresh snowstorm in the sun, a reflective diamond pool with dolphin fountains a few feet away from the door. Around it lay a botanical garden with vines and diamond shaped hedges. She laughs a little bit, thinking of how retro her place of residence outside the White House looks on the outside.

Robin looks behind her nervously, always frightened and eager to scamper back inside for the notion of what is behind them. The drive up to the house takes a good fifteen minutes up a winding cliffside with a two-way street that is against the sheer drop-off. One misstep and down one will fall, down and down they'll go till their head cracks against the asphalt and the copper fluid comes streaming out of them. The vice president worries herself constantly that sometimes the chief of the nation, if enraged enough, will dare to push a foreign ambassador or very skilled and very important businessman off the cliff and don it as an 'accident'. A complete travesty for the nation.

Corrin knows she's not kidding anyone. No one will care if she vanishes.

A few secret service agents and other staff are already bustling around the grounds for tomorrow's festivities. Corrin grapples her pockets, hoping to find the exact thing she's looking for, but sadly comes up empty. The president often packs herself a tiny flask of vodka with her on special occasions, as she found out rather quickly during her first few days in office that a little booze and alcohol helps her remember names. She has a lot of names to cycle through and not a whole lot of time to do it.

" _Great. A drunk politician..."_ Link's voice inside her head reminds her.

" _Oh, shut up you dead twat..."_ Corrin hisses to herself.

Their luggage is already inside, the driver of the limousine had it shipped earlier in the day and Corrin is ready to peel her itchy, yet tasty midnight tweed jacket and coarse pants to match off, her body longs the feeling of porcelain silk and the smooth feel of ivory. Robin is complacent with her hair down in a ponytail, a simple dress you'd see a girl wear to school, and flip flops. Until tomorrow, her profile is low and relaxed. The silverette finds it to be a much better suitable arrangement from the tiring heels and female business suits, the constant flashing of cameras, the microphones, and the stress.

Corrin claps her hands together, looking at her associate with wildfire in her eyes. "I have been looking forward to this for almost a month."

"I _have_ not," Robin corrects. "Tomorrow is going to be no different from our other dinners we've had with business executives, prime ministers, princesses and princes, and other people who'll pay a near fortune to have you sit at their table," she frowns. " _Your_ table," she corrects.

"Then you picked the wrong business if you're sick and tired of looking and playing the part." Corrin throws a little dig as she clip-clops her way up the sidewalk. "I mean, haven't you been learning from the best?" she asks, motioning to herself. Corrin can picture smug Link Collins sitting at his desk, tossing an apple in the air, and nodding at her ego.

However, the silverette is not about to be caught with her pants down and to also have her be upstaged by someone she seldom can come to like. "Except you aren't really playing that part all the well..." Robin mumbles into her neck, eyes averting conflict.

"Excuse me?" Corrin turns around not a moment to spare, eyes seizing her 'partner-in-crime' with as much passion as one having the desire to enact a game of murder. The tension is beyond palpable, it can be cut with a knife.

"I didn't say anything," Robin blinks innocently, and though she has a genuine heart, _she_ does know how the game is meant to be played, she just hates having to play it to be in politics. "It must've been the wind."

Corrin clucks her tongue, turning around and walking into the mansion. She drapes her coat off her shoulders, giving into an ever attentive agent standing near the front entrance on the inside. Robin follows after her, the two standing in the middle of the foyer. The foyer is completely empty and devoid of furniture, a chandelier swinging high above on a rafter, though it is hardly anything extravagant. Two identical paintings sit on opposite sides of the walls, and Corrin finds herself every single time she stays in the house looking at it, completely perplexed on its exact meaning. Perhaps there isn't any.

The painting in question is a piece of art that takes a few moments to look at before you understand exactly what is being looked at. In the right hand corner is a sun, at least Corrin thinks it is one, though it is dyed a deep silver, with its rays being a pernicious emerald green that reminds the president of industry, capitalism, and greed. The 'sun' is giving its rays to a field of corn, though the field of corn is nothing more than gold bars stenciled and structured to represent the bread counterpart. Robin matches Corrin's level again, looking at the painting on the left side of the wall. The right side has the painting reversed, but the message still means the same.

"Are you wondering about its existence again?" she asks.

"Yes. I don't have any idea as to what it could be. I'm not _that_ stupid, believe you me," Corrin frowns. "Despite what everyone says or thinks."

"Free silver?"

The president's face goes into deep thought over what she studied back in high school and college over the U.S history course. And all the help it did her, she smirks. "Like, Populist Party free silver? That this painting is aligned with William Jennings Bryan's _Cross of Gold_ speech? I'd say it's highly specific."

Robin shrugs. "It's just a muse. After all, I am the one who has the college major as an historian. It could be an allegory like the Wizard of Oz."

"I don't like that movie," Corrin wrinkles her nose.

"Why? Because you're just like the wizard?"

"What on Earth are you-"

"Nothing," Robin interrupts once more, striding past. Corrin's ears burn akin to that of a teapot, furious and blistering red. "It had to have been the wind again."

Corrin groans into her shoes. She wants the weekend to go as smooth as possible and having Robin over here throwing pot shots at her is generally unlike her vice president who is often sweet and well-mannered. The silverette gives a stink-eye to the painting on the wall, filing a notion inside her head that it needs to be replaced soon. Perhaps a self portrait. She can see it now. The president is drowning under halcyon lights from above on a Broadway stage, there's banners around her professing how amazing she is, and maybe she can throw in a top hat for old time's sake. Corrin smiles to herself at the thought.

She strolls after Robin into the main living room which meshes into the kitchen, stopping dead. A gentleman is standing in the center over by the counter, eyes straight dead ahead looking into her soul, unmoving, mouth agape. Corrin freezes, throwing a glance over at her secret service agents in the room who are doing absolutely nothing, and Robin who is retrieving a water bottle from the fridge.

"Psst..." Corrin whispers out of the corner of her mouth. "Robin?"

The vice president looks over. "What?"

"Why is this man just staring at me? And why is no one else doing anything about the fact some stranger is camped out in the presidential mansion?"

Robin gesticulates a glance at the man at the counter, then she bursts into laughter. "Oh, Corrin, no! That's not a stranger," then to the man she instructs, "Mac, you don't need to look so awestruck. It's only the president of the United States that you are looking at."

"Mac?" Corrin wrinkles her nose.

"The guy I hired to be a part of your secret service team!" Robin claps her hands together excitedly, water going everywhere as the cap of the bottle is off. "He's everything and more in his file."

The man, which the name is now starting to turn gears over in Corrin's head, inches near, afraid as if the silverette will combust. "Madam President, it's an honor to meet you. I've been preparing myself for days about this, but I seem to have forgotten everything since then."

Corrin is several inches taller than Mac, and it almost embarrasses her more than it should, as he is meant to be the one all flushed and red. "I- I didn't picture you to be so... so..."

"Short?" Mac supplies.

"Yeah..." then a pause. "Sorry."

"You're wearing heels. It gives you a good two and half or three inches more to your height," Robin comments, taking a swig of the water.

"Still..." Corrin trails off.

"I hope my height is not a problem!" Mac blushes profusely, and Corrin takes an immediate liking to him after knowing him for perhaps only thirty seconds. She shakes his hand eagerly, all smiles, though secretly her mind remembers that day when the folder lands on her desk with Robin's fancy manuscript all over it prescribing new changes within Corrin's inner circle, something the president shall never forget.

"Nonsense," she smiles with ease. "What job were you doing beforehand? I only hope it is a step up from whatever it was."

Mac blushes once more, and she notices the muscles rippling through his dark suit and tie, specific attire for secret service agents and others that fall into the same category. His hair is still the same military crew cut, eyes as green as the spokes and branches of an olive tree, he resembles the picture to a T, which she reckons must have not been taken so long ago. "I was a security guard at Wal-Mart. I got paid minimum wage to stop teenagers from trying to scam Redbox machines and shifty cashiers from taking singles out of the register. Hefty business, I know."

The two ladies share a laugh, Corrin's feeling fresh and nice and actually believable, almost warm enough where it is believable to herself as well. "Well, I certainly hope this is better than Wal-Mart and minimum wage," Corrin giggles. The president of the United States is giggling. Hell has frozen over, somewhere. "You know the grounds inside and out?"

"As well as I could in looking at the overview this morning," Mac answers honestly, nodding briskly. "Five bedrooms, seven bathrooms. A library, a billiards room, a dining room, two living rooms..." he ticks off of his fingers.

"Then be a good lad and show Miss Wyndel to her room. I usually allow the agents, save for the ones who don't wish to go, out to the town for drinks as long as they don't get too hammered after around ten or so."

"No can do, Madam President," the man dissuades, shaking his head in dissent.

"Why not?"

Mac's facial expression goes slack, almost stern with a mixture of dread. "I used to be an alcoholic in college, and it's the reason why I flunked out. Booze was more important to me than my grades, and it punished me for a good ten years or so. I've been two and a half years cold turkey. I haven't touched a glass of wine, beer, any kind of spirits, margarita, sangria... it has any alcoholic percentage in it, I don't drink it."

Corrin presses lightly on his arm, scooting him over towards Robin. "Then you're really going to not like me, Mr. Sarasota! I am known for being quite the heavy drinker during the time of war, or generally any time I have high stress levels. Like- like tomorrow night with the dinner party! Get going!"

Robin glares at her, then nods gently at Mac's leading arm like the gentleman he is. Corrin watches the two vanish into the mansion, and all is right in the world. She strides over to the refrigerator, knowing there's an half-full bottle of wine somewhere on one of the shelves. Her eyes seize a bottle of Presecco, wrapped and gilded in a gorgeous fluorescent shroud. Corrin drags the bottle out of the refrigerator and reaches for a glass.

She places her cell phone on the counter, turning as she pours. The see-through glass is filled up with a bubbly, sparkling pearl liquid and she takes a tart, bitter sip, sighing in exultation.

Her phone buzzes on the counter, and Corrin gives it a sideways glance. Business can wait.

It goes berserk once more, and it is enough to start the left-eye twitch that plagues the president like so. She puts the glass down and picks up her cell phone. An alert is front and center on her phone screen. Corrin goes to fill the glass up some more with another serving of Presecco, and her phone starts to sound out an alarm.

She frowns. The alarm on her phone that is going off usually is for the notification that sensitive case files detailing to the FBI, CIA, or Syrenet have been hacked into and are being glimpsed at.

Her eyes glance over the notification, and it reads Syrenet.

Curious, Corrin double-taps the notification, promptly screaming as the file being read in secrecy somewhere around the world comes full center.

The full bottle of Presecco falls out of her hands and shatters onto the floor with a mighty crash.

* * *

There is no light at all streaming through Roy Arcadia's hospital room windows save for a tiny halcyon beam falling on the bookshelf that has absolutely nothing on it, so it is a complete waste of light. The redhead groans, shuffling around on his bed, careful to not move his right leg as much for the stab wound is still healing and it needs time to get used to the stitches that kept the flesh together.

Visions and hallucinations pass over him as the medication runs its course. He is woken several times the first night in intensive care with nightmares, Link Collins's rabid face looming over his as the blonde weapons dealer threatens the Syrenet employee with a blade before diving it straight through his heart. Roy lurches forward out of a brief stasis of slumber, sweat pouring down his forehead.

The room is still black, and no one has come to visit. No one has called his bedside or nurse on call to even ask how he's doing. Ness hasn't been dropped by in the hospital room for conversation, and Roy feels lonely, the feeling festers and crawls all over his skin like a pile of scarab beetles. They pick at his flesh till there's nothing left but a rusty sack of bones and a smell that reeks of the Egyptian god Anubis.

He pats all up and down his chest to ensure he's still wholly there, and lets out a sigh. Roy is missing nearly everyone in his life. His mother, his father, Shulk, Ike, Marth, Pit, Lucas, and yes, even Snake... though he doesn't want to admit that aloud. Since not a single one of them has showed up even for a minute places a seed of despair and wretched hate inside his stomach, like twisted cow innards that give off a stench of horrific, curdled milk. No one cares about him. Shulk's eagerness for a new recruit is an act, Roy laments. Marth is a selfish guy only interested in himself, Roy snarls. Ike could care less, Roy sobs. Lucas doesn't have any idea I'm even hurt, Roy prospects. Ness is ashamed of me, Roy cries. Snake is disappointed, Roy worries.

Roy shuts his eyes, hoping to go back to sleep, when the door to his room suddenly flies open.

"Visitation hours are over! You'll have to come back tomorrow!" he hollers, almost going for the covers, scared half to death.

Light pours into the room and he gets a glimpse at another familiar redhead, though it is a face he wishes did not have to exist to any sort of capacity. Midna Nye is standing in the doorway, half her face alit by the hallway lights, the other half cast in shadow, her nose curved upward like a bleak, minimal makeup dotting her cheeks and eyes. Roy's face flushes with heat, embarrassed, and then he remembers all that happened in Boston by her presence.

The betrayal, the loss of blood, the fight, and it is partially her fault.

"What are you doing here?" he snarls.

Midna takes the brute greeting with style, shutting the door off and flickering on a lamp that Roy didn't even know existed. "Hello to you too, Mr. Bossy Pants." She swipes her hair out of her face. "I thought you needed the company."

She takes a seat by the edge of the bed, facing the wall, fiery hair still tossed over her shoulder. Roy bites down on his lip, realizing the vitriolic conduct is inappropriate and was out of hastiness. They sit in silence for a few moments, Roy's eyes readjusting to the fact there's light in his room, as he's been unable to get up out of bed and the only comfort he has had is to sit and read or watch horrible sitcoms on the TV.

"I'm sorry," he apologizes. "I have no reason to be like this."

She bites on the inside of her cheek, not looking at him. "S'okay. You have all the reason to be on edge."

The redhead girl stands up and goes to face him at the other end of the bed, hands on the black railing at the other end. Roy gets a good look at her, and she isn't all that much better than what he may have expected. Several bruises mar her neck, and her right eye is actually a black eye now, and he comes to the conclusion that the great battle between Snake and Midna against Link's goons didn't end all too well.

"You look terrible..." Roy says, sitting up. "I don't know how the fight even ended, but I guess you didn't get away without getting scratched up too."

Midna looks around the dreary and blank room. "Is this all they could give you?" she asks, completely ignoring his original question. "I'm surprised. Last time I was in the hospital, I got twenty-four hour care, a wheelchair I could use to leave the room at any given point and time, and anything I wanted to eat at whatever time I wanted it. I- I had it good," Midna recalls, smirking slightly. "I feel bad. How many days have you been here, holed up?"

"Three."

"And how much longer did the doctors say you'll stay?"

"Five more days," Roy answers. "I'll be trying to walk with my legs on Monday, but besides that, I am stuck here till I get a leave of absence. Corrin, before I got shipped into this room, said I have a two week recovery period after I get released before she may need me again."

"It's how the government works," Midna shrugs. "Besides that gloomy prison sentence, how are you holding up?"

Roy laughs nervously. "You want the truth or to sugar coat it?"

"Whatever way you want to spin it. I'm not going to think less of you."

"Horrible, then," he admits. "I have nightmares whenever I try to sleep. I can hardly feel my toes. No one has come by-"

Midna closes her eyes, her face reading as if she didn't quite understand him. "I'm sorry, say that again. _No one_ has stopped by before me?"

"No one."

"Ness, your AI Unit?" Midna frowns. The only way for Ness to show up would be someone taking the AI Unit's disk along with them.

"Nope."

"Corrin?"

"Nada."

"Not even Shulk?"

"He probably doesn't even know. If he did, he probably doesn't care."

She straights herself up somewhat, going to sit back down. "God, that- that's bad. I'm sorry, Roy. You get stuck in a horrible room, you are getting crappy food, and no one has come to visit you to see if you're doing alright. I- I... I thought I had it bad when the worst injury I suffered was a broken rib in a fight, alongside a mild concussion whilst being pampered."

He shrugs back at her, almost indifferent about the whole thing. "I've gotten used to the silence. You're the only person besides the nurse that I have seen in three days, you realize."

"No, I didn't," Midna bites down on her tongue, running a hand through her hair. "I'm sorry..." she adds, softly.

Roy gives a weak laugh, the weak laugh reminding of him of times in high school when he used to be bullied for being a ginger, or a spawn of the devil and his tears would not be wiped away by his parents as they worked late; all the boy had was his weak laugh to carry him through the day and placate that fake smile atop a bruised and battered face to make the world seem slightly askew.

"I need to stop hoping that someone I care about is going to go through the door. Is there any reason Snake hasn't stopped by? Since I am the one he placed practically in this mess, I thought it'd only be fair..."

Midna rolls her eyes. "Snake Karlo, as you know, is the director of the FBI. I doubt he has time to just idly sit by and twiddle his thumbs while getting over here to visit you. If he had the time to put it into his schedule, he would. He cares about everyone he's working with, Roy."

"I don't believe you. I really, _really_ want to, but I just don't."

That is enough for her. She stands up, hands forming claws that Midna wants to wrap around his puny throat and just squeeze. Why, oh why is Roy Arcadia's humor so dry and his opportune on life so pessimistic and defeatist when he hasn't truly lost. Midna heads for the door, one foot out. "I wanted to come in and be somewhat apologetic for what happened, though it was out of my control. And all you're going to do is sit there and defend yourself and your pathetic feelings that you're going through with bad humor and deflection. Roy, quit trying to be this all big and powerful thing... you aren't that."

She goes to leave, the redness of hair vanishing behind the wall when Roy mutters out a croak. "Why?"

Midna pauses, looking back into the room. "Why, what?" she frowns, not understanding his general question.

Roy looks at her dead in the eyes, a stare so chilling it strikes shivers up and down them. "If you were already in Boston, why did Corrin need to send me? If there was already a spy trying to tag Link in some shady dealings, what would an extra person bring to the table? You've been in the FBI for a lot longer than I have, and you've had more experience. I come in to Boston like a fish out of water. I had been inside the world of Syrenet for not even more than forty-eight hours and I'm given an assignment that I can die instantaneously in. I wasn't even given a proper Syrenetic suit to use, just a communication device to talk to Ness and Ness himself on his disk. Sure, I had a pistol, but that isn't like having the entire digital world in your head..." he looks at his scarred and bandaged hands. "It's as if Corrin wanted me to fail. Why?"

The redhead FBI agent at the door stirs uncomfortably, going back to sit. "I don't think it is a good thing to dwell on that," she pauses. "I'm sorry." Midna does not know why she's apologizing all the time. None of this hindsight is ever going to affect anything else in the long run. It all happened in the past, and the past cannot be changed.

"I know you are. But being sorry won't change anything."

Midna takes a deep, long sigh that is drawn out and her mind wanders to when she used to question the world and everything in it for how it revolved around making her miserable. "I originally had been placed in Link's group as a spy for Snake had some intel that someone within his inner circle had started a cocaine and heroin drug ring. Sure enough, one of his henchmen was doing some underground stuff and he got busted. Snake wanted to make sure that I stayed around as Corrin proposed her suspicions... though I hadn't been told of you until the day you arrived at the plant. The- the day you got caught, I mean."

"Snake didn't tell you?"

"No, and I don't even want to think about it," Midna admits, and then to herself, " _Conspiracy theories?_ "

"So, the two of them were just hoping one of us caught him in the act? I watched the entire conversation he had with that rebel woman from Oklahoma, Sheik... and you didn't do anything afterwards. Why not?"

"My instructions weren't on catching Link selling away weapons. He blew a lot of smoke at his propositions. That man never lied, that much was true," she says. "But, his offers and deals weren't always what you expected. Sometimes a man would order twenty sniper-rifles for almost a million dollars and all the guy got in return was a firecracker. Link would then eliminate that customer so the loose ends were all kept like little ducks all in a row. He's duped many people before with his transactions, but at the same time he did give fair dealings. Link- Link had no love for the rebel cause, as I am pretty sure, no love for Syrenet. He made money off of it, and that was that. I had to be wary if Link would dupe Sheik out on a business deal as the girl isn't any older than you, I'm sure, and she's reckless. He had viewed her as a liability and I just wanted to make sure."

Roy absorbs all of this information, feeling slightly better. A flare of irritation rises up in his bones. "When Link captured me, why didn't you bust in through the door and kill him right there?"

"And risk both of us being killed?" Midna cries incredulously. "Forget it! I value about my life too!"

"Why didn't you help me when I was getting tortured, like before he plunged a freaking knife into my leg!"

Midna rubs her hands on her brow. "I would've had to fight off ten guys at least by myself in close quarters, plus keep you alive. I couldn't intervene till Snake came in as extra manpower is extra manpower, whether it be one guy or a thousand soldiers. Snake is one of the best fighters this country has, and even though it was just him, he and I only sustained minor injuries while the other then guys are laying dead in cemeteries right now."

He is silent for a few moments, and then Roy licks his lips. "I- I think I need to get some rest." Roy then curls up on his side, turning his back away from Midna.

She looks at him with a sense of peculiarity, as he's an enigma she just cannot quite figure out and it is starting to bug her. Midna stands up, the bed creaking as she rises. "You- you get some rest, Roy. If I can manage it, I'll come back tomorrow at around noon. Corrin's husband, the senator from New York, Cloud Gladwell is hosting a dinner party and I've been invited to go. That isn't an invitation I can necessarily turn down if I'd like to keep my job, y'know?"

Roy doesn't respond, he just lays there in the subdued darkness and quiet, listening as Midna straightens herself up and walks away, the sound of her heels getting softer and softer till they are nothing more than a mere memory like Link's burning gaze in the back of his skull as he slowly cries himself to sleep.

All his mind can think about while he begins to drift off into a state of dreams, is her face.

Midna Nye's precious face.

He wants to kiss her, he desires to kiss her, he wanted to kiss her, he desired to kiss her.

And, just like before, Roy Arcadia does not have the ability to muster the courage to do so.

* * *

 **Holy crap! Ladies and gentlemen, there we are, that was Chapter #12: Ness's Mistake, of Syrenet, and wow, this _is_ now the longest chapter of the piece as we are now at an 8k chapter like good lord in heaven help me, how do I do this? There is certainly a lot to cover and go over, and I hope you're ready for the down low. What exactly do you think is in this Fiora file that Ness has looked at which if you realize and play your cards right, happens at the same time Corrin gets the notification on her phone. I of course know the answer and that answer dramatically changes everything, but first, speculate. Who does Lucas remind you of, my fellow readers, for you guys who were Icarus Chronicle followers who remember, in that story? His wanting and desire to break free and be something that he is not is very similar to one character that I have modeled him after slightly, and can you spot it? And look there, we have Mr. Mac Sarasota! I realize his introduction is brief, but he's sticking around so we'll get to know what our secret service agent is all about one day, and it'll be a glorious day. His intro was truly for humor more than anything, so I stuck to my guns and hoped it paid off. Robin and Corrin surely have an interesting dynamic, won't you say? Besides that, let's move onto the meat and potatoes... Roy and Midna. It has been two chapters since Roy's poor downfall, and here he is wallowing around in his own filth. That perhaps has been my favorite part of the story so far, and there's many moments like this on the road ahead, so brace yourselves! There is a poll on my profile about your favorite characters from the story, and there is one more I have yet to introduce to you all, so I guess there are minor spoilers, but you get a selection of four choices and I'm interested in what you all pick! Please review! I'd love to know your thoughts on the chapter, as I'd also love to respond to said review in the above AN at the beginning. I hope to have Chapter #13: Abolishing His System, out by Saturday at the earliest, next Wednesday at the latest. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you all have an amazing day! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	13. Chapter 13: Abolishing His System

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #13: Abolishing His System. *sigh* Once again, another two week hiatus that I really,** ** _really_** **need to stop doing, but summer is just around the corner for me so perhaps things will look up and we'll be all peachy again. Won't that be amazing? Anyways, a whole lot happened last chapter despite there only being three scenes to discern from, and I think I wrote some of my favorite stuff in Smash in a long time with what you read. Today, we'll get a few scenes I don't think many people thought they'd be seeing, but eh, I digress. Sorry about the wait, but eventually we'll get there. I'm just glad I haven't had my fire burned out. Review replies!**

 **SeththeGreat- Interesting concept right there. I guess I could tell you subtle foreshadowing, especially with how Lucas is thinking, that there is something to happen far down the line which will come into play as something really bad, but it is all I can tell you. I appreciate the musing. AND, yes, don't worry, you'll be getting enough Snake. He isn't as high as main characters on this list since it pretty much is an ensemble cast, but he'll get his redemption eventually. And don't worry about him not seeing Roy, it'll come around, just not in the manner you probably expected it. Thanks for being the only reviewer!**

 **Alright guys, here we go. Chapter #13: Abolishing His System. Just a heads up that this chapter is going to be kind of dark, and when I say it, I mean disturbing mental imagery and hallucinations and some mentions of mental abuse, nothing physical. Just a fair warning, I thought I could give to you all.**

* * *

Ike isn't necessarily a man known for his patience. He's a guy who has a big heart, a trait clearly picked up on, but this entire being patient thing has never been a forte he excels at. Just ask Pit. The nerdy technician who wishes he was an angel knows all about Ike's frustration when the two aren't speaking to each other because Pit has gone and ticked the blue haired softie off in some way that only Pit knows how to do.

So, when Ike is sitting upstairs, doing some laundry, and switching between reading a book or eating his microwavable dinner, Pit's presence is the last thing he requested for the night and just wishes the guy could do something else. Pit's diamond eyes peek over the counter, almost resembling a child trying to steal out of the cookie jar, and it causes something awful to stir on Ike's skin like an unforgiving itch. He folds one shirt from the washer to the dryer, a simple black and blue button down that causes the burly man to think of bruises ringing his neck from attackers back down in New Orleans.

He shudders for a second, forgetting where he is, stumbling back into the table, which hits the bookcase, which hits Pit. The technician lets out a shocked cry of pain as the wooden structure bashes against his head, and the angel swears, he swears a not too kind word that Ike would most certainly chastise him for. Ike rubs his forehead complacently. He doesn't like being like Marth with PTSD and the nightmares and all that. He's supposed to be the strongest mentally willed worker in Syrenet. Everyone excuses Shulk because Shulk has been through hell like no one's business with a dead wife, child, and the other troubles plaguing his life. Ike gets no excuse.

It's probably because he refuses to tell anyone what actually goes on his life, in his mind, and that might not be the greatest thing to do in situations like these. Ike also remembers his nightmares as a teenager, from one of those hiking trips, where a great sports companion of his - Ike never called anyone on his team a 'playmate' or fellow athlete, it felt too foreign - gets ripped apart by a bear running around the woods, crazed and looking for meat. It just happens to be his best friend, right in front of him, that gets ripped to shreds with scarlet spewing everywhere. It's on Ike's skin, in his mouth, in his very soul and he chokes again.

A hum, electric and high pitched whines between his ears, breaking over his streaming thoughts, plugging the spigot, and his vision stutters as he takes a step back, bracing himself with both hands against the hood of the car. The car isn't real, it is the car Ike placed his hands on after running from the bear, the bear with a foaming maw of skin and blood and flesh and human and grizzly gore... Ike groans, setting the shirt down on the table. The metal of the hood is cool and damp and gritty with caked on dirt. He remembers it like he remembers every day, one drowned in greyscale.

When he comes to, the world is bleary, Ike thinks he had fainted that moment after recognizing the star quarterback halfway in between the bear's jaw., his tongue is swollen and dry in his mouth, his ears are muzzy, muting the already hushed stillness. Ike grits his teeth, shaking himself off from the memory, but he feels like the world is off kilter, settling at a slant. _I'm fine,_ he says out loud, to himself. _Fine,_ he repeats, clenching his fists on top of red metal, digging his knuckles into the dust. _Okay._

A curl of breath whispers across his cheek, faint. And close. Whose breath? His mother's? Corrin?

And the set of diamond eyes turns to clash with the sea of black orbs. Ike frowns.

"Pit?" he calls, half annoyed. There's no response.

Ike rolls his eyes. " _The technician is going to get everyone killed,_ " he mulls silently. " _When he doesn't watch where he points the stupid thing..._ " The bluenette Syrenet commander is extending his graces with trying to teach Pit how to fire a firearm. It is written somewhere in a dusty old book with cobwebs on it that all Syrenet employees big or small must be trained in some form of combat. Ike places the pistol in between Pit's hands and tells him to practice.

Somewhere along the line it blurs into attacking something, and attacking _anything_ is not high on Pit's list of stuff he wishes to do at his age and he panics. It reminds him of that night with Shulk, the blonde launching from his pedestal, heart racing, and he's on a rocking chair muttering unintelligible things into his knuckles. Pit has a panic attack, which is rare, and is pointing the gun at literally everything in the room other than the target. The cold muted barrel of the gun glances against the center of Ike's chest once or twice and it is the end of his rope; he's had enough.

He finally manages to calm Pit down, which is moreso a game of wrestling the gun away from the angel's iron hard grasp and gently shaking him to wake up. Pit's generally happy and benevolent blue stare is dwindled and dull, and Ike remembers the chill of the pistol against his flesh and _he_ snaps. _How could you be so stupid? You almost killed me!_ Ike screams this and more, things he wishes to not repeat, before stalking upstairs. His mind needs some calming down and it is up to the laundry to do this.

Ike is reminded of an ancient, stone oven. Or the peeling spine of some long faded book. A shuttered and final inhalation. The crumbling walls of a hospital hallway he's huddled against. It is all complacent, it is all inside his labyrinth of a mind that somehow has yet to revive itself from New Orleans. Just like Fiora's haunting resides in Detroit, Ike's settles in the French Quarter of jazz, shrimp, jambalaya, and other _le perfect_ things he is unable to understand.

 _"It's normal..."_ Corrin mutters to him one evening when he's in her office, and she's not smoking a cigarette or drinking a glass of wine. Completely rare occurrence. _"Did you injure yourself in the fall?" she inquires._

 _"No-no…. I don't think I am- h... I don't think I'm hurt..."_ Ike responds to the concerned message, and it snaps him out of whatever stupor he's stuck in. The shirt still hangs in his hands, limp and never moving, and he's sick of it all, sick of what he's become and what he's becoming, and what he's never going to be.

" _Then you shouldn't fret about it. You need to man up, Ike."_

 _"And what if I never do?"_

 _"Then this isn't the business for you."_

"I can't be this way forever..." Ike mutters to himself, rubbing his temples. This guy is meant to be everyone's cornerstone, but nothing is proving to work. He wants to be okay, it is what Ike wants to say in front of the mirror, or... maybe, to the vacant place beside his shoulder, in some approximation of repudiation. But if he is to say this, the hauntings inside Marth, his best friend, inside his closest Syrenet companion, will come forth in a glorious night, furious. That's what the white haired devil is there for. Ike groans, sitting down at the table. Nothing feels right. When he and Marth signed up for Syrenet together at the prospect of their high IQ's, their amazing grades and more, it is enough to make him forget that truthfully Corrin wears a mean mask, and she's good at this game, and she's injured Marth somehow. He shall injure her back, Ike growls into the cloth on the table. Marth is to injure the fair white haired devilish maiden. Maybe it is to make him feel good, him being Ike, to stop the lies and second guessing. Impressive nothings without oppressive need. Instead- in spite of, possibly just because of- He says nothing. Continues to until the question, its answers, its false rhetoric in the form of _by the ways_ and _don't leave me_ , begins to evaporate, first on his lips, then-

He glances down at his fingers and wonders why that is.

 _Where are you going?_ He asks, before he can linger on questions or, was it answers again, he can't remember asking, giving, or wishing these thoughts away. Ike misses home, a little bit of an old hickory smell in the air of Idaho, and potatoes, and pretty much those two things together. The question reminds Ike of a time when he was perhaps seven or eight, and it used to be him, his mom slowly dying of cancer, and a husky. His mom walks out of the house one evening with a sweater on, no shoes or socks in the middle of winter. Ike's head appears out from the end of the covers, as he's heard a scary noise and is hiding. The husky, which Ike names later to a simple name of Joe, is curled up on the comforter with him. His smile is wide, his hair is as dark as the surrounding room, and he whispers, "Where are you going?" to his mother.

"Out. Just... out..." his mother replies.

And out she goes, out she goes indeed. And she never comes back. Police find her body up against a road sign, frozen to death. Ike is left alone with his husky Joe, at eight years old.

Fighting is his bottle, his remedy, Ike Forgenson is no stupid alcoholic.

Bits of rubble flakes off under his weight when Ike leans to fall heavily against the table. The rough fuzz of the vine feels strangely warm, like a wiry arm or a dry tongue or-

He looks at the path. He thinks, he remembers, he wishes that it was his mother walking towards him right there in the makeshift laundry room. A sun blazes outwards into the horizon, actually it is the headlamp lights, streams of blinding light as if some holy transfiguration was coming down from the reckoning right then and there.

-Something.

And then he gets to his feet and follows. Ike doesn't actually follow, but his mind does, as the guy is entertaining the notion, and he's entertaining quite the great notion.

Over the tiny slope, the road ends. It's not an abrupt end, he thinks; where the grey, worn tarmac becomes wild, dusty, thick leaved foliage that bleeds out and backwards towards a place that smells like wet stone. But… he can not tell exactly.

His world is blurred and his vision is failing and Ike cannot stand straight.

 _The road and the end meld together_. That's a fact. Ike hums it to himself like a hymn, but he's heard kids on the playground utter it. It sounds like someone who read it from a torn page from a book without a title. The bluenette wonders what a possible title for that could be, but it isn't what he likes to think about. _Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts_. He remembers the cadence of their voice murmuring for his attention... _a smell like a cold day, a shuffle of soft soled shoes on checkered tile_. _The feeling of running the tips of his fingers over a nameplate on the side of the door because he didn't have anything to do with his hands_ ( _and he didn't want to hear and he didn't want to understand_ ), _spelling over and over..._

( _slim fingers grip unto his temples, the feeling burns and that person is screaming,_ look at me, you stupid git, do you even know my name? _A burning face places itself in front of him, fire leeching like tendrils of smoke and twisted tree branches off the black skin_ _chapped lips press into a thin line and the terribly pretty face staring down at him is haloed in watery light and his ears ache and his mouth waters and his eyes burn and he says_ of course of course I'm Ike, right, _because he does not like the expression that pretty face makes when he can't answer. He knows that, even if he doesnt always know why)_

He's lost so much time. His mind skips. Burnt out celluloid frames shuttering on a reel.

Tension winds at his temple, Ike winces, blunt teeth digging into his lip as he presses shaking fingers to his brow, beading with cold sweat.

He gasps shallowly, a noise like a dying animal grits in his chest with smoke and rattling shells.

And then-

A stale wind sweeps along his back, unbalancing him as it plucks irritably at the loose folds of his clothes and through microscopic holes under his skin, brushing away the pressure. The blonde blinks blearily.

And the answers are gone.

Ike sits down in the chair.

The vacation that he and the guys took is not enough to stir the memories away, back into some dark, unrelenting cave.

Ike sobs in the chair, the washer still thrown open, and Pit is sitting there on the floor watching it all.

All the angel can think of is how this is his fault. If he hadn't freaked out, everything would be good. Everything would be so much better than what he wanted it to be.

* * *

The stirring sounds of city life are downright annoying in Sheik Braring's ears. She doesn't particularly like people, it is a common known fact in her life and everyone who disagrees with her gets a bullet hole somewhere on their body. Often the head, sometimes the blonde is merciful and she shoots the foot or arm or eye or somewhere that isn't destined to kill.

People tell her she's quite the great shot, but she doesn't need their opinions and mind to let her know that.

Sheik shuffles her arms quietly in her coat, hands meshed together like netting and she is walking, ever so gracefully with the dexterity and poise of a grown and mature Bambi. The knife she always has against pant leg thumps up and it thumps down and it is never going to go anywhere else as long as creepy men of the male specie still exist.

Her blonde hair is down and messy, and it is a rare occurrence for her to wear her hair like that as the fishtail braid is effective and it works, and she loves using it. Sheik is tired and bored of the Midwest. It is too... brown, too rugged, and the oil city slick is desperately clinging to her skin like some toddler throwing a tantrum in the middle of the grocery store. She needs to keep her mind focused on one of two things. First thing, destroy whatever Syrenet stands for, as the blonde has the eyes like a hawk which pierce right through the television screen politicians who are all nothing more than mere puppets that do not have names. Front and center is Corrin Etch, and Corrin Etch is a beautiful lady who is downright terrible at playing her game.

Secondly, Sheik needs to shake off the trail that's following her around, almost like a deranged puppy however it isn't cute, but moreso definitely pathetic and she needs to cut the malignant cancer cells before she becomes nothing more than a walking, hissing cliché.

Though she does not particularly care for going over old memories, the constant reminding helps as her father teaches her to shoot. To punch at the right places, while her mother combs her hair and prepares her for prom, a prom she'll never go to as Sheik has shooting range practice with the best dad in the world at 7:30 and prom starts at 7:30 as well. Sheik Braring can only be in one place at any one given time.

The sun glows on the windows of the shops she is waling by in a discordant pattern of light and shadow, dust particles dancing in a frenzied motion to create small whirlwinds and pollen devils. Sheik catches a particular wisp floating by the window, ornate shapes spawning from the movement. Her mind wanders, and she's six again, and boy oh boy doesn't she wish to be six years old again. A low knock comes from the locked door opposite the windows, but this is all in her head, and the little girl turns, spinning around to see her dad, her amazing dad, a forty year-old, damn brilliant forty year-old man waving sheepishly on the other side of the door.

Sheik grimaces, closing her eyes. " _Not this one,_ " she scolds herself darkly. Her dad never smiles, her dad doesn't smile, as he's taught her to be a fighter and fighters do not smile.

She grumbles to herself, rummaging in her pocket for a cigarette. The carton is somewhere, and her fingers seize it like taking the glorious day. A lighter follows suit, a flickering orange wispy flame, bringing the pallid stick of nicotine, black death, and formaldehyde to her lips, giving a satisfying gasp as the murky white liquid and gas vanished behind her set of pale lips. She watches the falling sun sink beneath the sky in an array of wild pinks, dashing sunbursts, edgy amaranthines, and chilling cardinals. She shudders at the striking red in the sky, it resembles blood with such a strong familiarity that now she sees the youthful blonde's face in the light above, and she's falling back, against the side of one of the shops, now muttering this random person's name.

No, the name isn't random.

 _Link Collins._ The name. The guy's name of someone she did 'business' with. She's not surprised to know the fact that he's dead, but it makes her sad and stop to think about what she's sad.

She's sad, Sheik Braring is upset, purely because she did not pull the trigger on his behind beforehand, when she had the chance and could have taken over the entire factory.

"Link!" she cries out loud, before shaking his head and breathing in heavily. She isn't upset over his death, most certainly not. She's upset at the golden opportunity now taken from her fingers. Least she has President Corrin Etch to think about blowing her brains all over the wall. She places the stump of the cigarette down on the grim ground of concrete, and she lazily watches the smolders dance the night away, happy and obscene. Sheik smiles to herself, no longer feeling like she needs nicotine in her system before the day is over. It'll just lead to restless nights tossing and turning in the covers while tormenting nightmares cripple her every movement. She shuts her eyes, her hands gripping the sides of the brick building as if she'll keel over without having a surface to grasp. It torments her, it is killing er slowly, killing her softly. Why can't she get the gilded man's rippling electric blue eyes out of her head? Or the sand cropped wave of lemonade hair followed by that generous smile and abashed complexion... gah, it is tearing her apart!

Sheik continues walking, done with some of her dramatic flair, which is done in part as an act to throw the creep currently following her off his game, as he wouldn't want to mess with some psycho woman who cries and breaks down over perhaps what is known to be nothing. She passes by another closed shop, and this time it is something pretty and super girly. Like, girly to the point of choking. There's a poster in the window, and Sheik pauses to read it. She has nothing else to do other than waste her time in the great big bad city of Austin, Texas, so why not? The poster is a pretty large one if there were many comparable sizes to scrutinize. The message is written in a swooping font, like pen calligraphy, probably done by a girl's handwriting given it is so impeccably neat that even a word processor couldn't do the things this poster looked like. Evident signs of marker bubble in the spaces of the letters which are left by the swooping writing, and Sheik's eye is twitching once more as she realizes that the bubbles are that of a dyed crimson. More _freaking_ blood. Great! Just the color she is unable to get out of her head. An aquamarine border lies around the edges, and the store window holds it in front of the display, kind of abashedly, if windows could display human emotions, perhaps she should be staring at it that way instead.

There's a moment of awkward, inebriated silence, as the bustling city street goes quite for just a moment, and Sheik then turns to the poster that the window had put up against the wall all those minutes ago. She scowls. This message is absolute horse manure. _How can anyone read this and really think something like that? Must be on heroine or something, for lord's sake._ Sheik looks back at the way she just came, making sure it is empty. It is, and there's no flickering of a dead Link Collins on the cobblestones with crimson blood everywhere or her father's appraised face peeking around the corner to do one last double check as if she is sixteen again and supposed to be upset. Empty and desolate. Like Sheik's heart. The coast is clear.

Sheik rips the poster off the display window, crumbling it and ripping it apart into tiny pieces.

She throws it in the trash nearby.

The message read, _Life is full of rainbows. However, you look down. Come on in and buy one! It'll make your day so much brighter and bubblier!_

Is it even possible to buy a rainbow?

During her walk, Sheik Braring sometimes wonders why she makes friends with the people that she does. As she stands on a busy street corner, waiting impatiently for all the cars to drive by (a Porsche, a Toyota, three Honda Civics. Not just one, but three), and there's even a bench for patrons to sit down if they're tired of waiting. Sheik doesn't want to wait, as she feels that creep's eyes in the back of her head again. Her mind hates having to wait. How long could one light take, she ponders, wanting another cigarette. She's waiting for the counselor from her college days to swoop in, a man with a huge fancy plaque and PhD, a Dr. Hyrule, and then, only then does she feels very stupid for leaving her phone in her bag, a bag she now remembers forgetting, in her seat at the bar she just left, halfway across downtown. Lost, it's almost painful having to deal with the antics of the world stuck alongside her. The sidewalk is cluttered with all sorts of knick-knacks, such as stress balls with slogans that read _Just Breathe_ , or stuffed toys that look as if a slovenly, poor child in Mexico made them with paperclips for fingers. A couple of glow sticks sit in a novelty coffee mug with the words _Happy Birthday, Son_ strewn across it. Her mind wants to believe that some toy store exploded while waiting for the 'you may walk now', and no one has picked up the mess. It takes all of Sheik's will to not, and it's killing her just like not having her phone, to get up and crack one, turn the lights off, and have a rave party in the middle of the street with glow sticks and loud music.

Problem is, she needs a phone. This sucks.

She's having trouble deciding if she should look up at the clouds and make stories out of the etchings she sees in the plaster or to scowl at the man stalking her, of one of her old college clients that somehow has her phone number and address, a sleazy looking guy with greased back black oily hair that makes Sheik want to hurl. Her profession was simplistic and easy. It didn't require a lot of brain power. Sheik Braring used to be the girl who'd flirt with you before stealing your wallet and knock you out while doing it. Her employer let her keep half the money she stole, until he tried placing his hands somewhere they shouldn't have gone and she shoots him twelve times in the chest for good measure.

It makes Sheik reminisce when she was younger. Her mind wanders and it settles down on a year that people generally don't think about. Seventeen. At seventeen, Sheik has dealt with many things, some of them good, some of them bad, but she isn't at the age at being able to discern them from each other. She isn't sure whether or not to put her father and her mother on the good or bad list. It'll come to her eventually. Sheik swipes some of her blonde hair behind her head and sighs. This light seems to be starting much later than usual... it's taking so long for the red circle to come that she wants to bury her face in the bench chair thing and suffocate.

It sounds kind of difficult. Sheik has literally no idea how to suffocate on metal.

Another rouse of silence passes between them; them is her and the road. Sheik catches himself staring, staring far away at this couple walking hand in hand with a stroller in between them, but goodness this is wrong as Sheik is staring at strangers and really wanting what they have. There's a code you don't cross, and Sheik is super close to crossing it so she settles to notice on the guy only, the code you don't cross is prevalent. You never envy a man, his woman, and their children. She learned that while pickpocketing. It could've led to some super damaging consequences. She very well knows this, that staring is a form of lust, but she still does it anyways. This man, though she doesn't know his name, is down right gorgeous, stunning in every inch and curve. Pasty white skin that glistens like reflective glass, two soft, sweet diamond eyes with dark, radiating auburn hair acting as the backdrop. His body is slim, a girl's dream body, because he is perfectly outlined like blowing glass, with curves that accentuate his physique so well. This gentleman has to know he's gorgeous, but for once in her life, Sheik bites down on her tongue, she tries not to say anything about it to anyone. She knows that the man is feeling eyes on the back of his head, someone is staring at him again... fifteenth time this morning, but all she can do is shrug and say it's because of hormones. To break the silence, a car decides to speed by with rap music blaring out of the speakers, and it scares Sheik half to death, snapping her out of her wits faster than actual fingers snapping together.

The sun is slowly going down, the dimming rays are lights that give off amorous shadows on the chipped and tarnished asphalt of Sheik's road as the haggard blonde walks across the tarmac to the other side of the street. It really isn't _her_ road of course. It belongs to the city of Austin. But, she likes to entertain the notion. She rubs her face a few times because she's so damn tired of not being able to sleep. Last night, she dreamt of him. Of her father. She dreamed about the man's blue camping backpack, a common sight on their many camping trips, his nice smile, his gentle and soft hands when he'd brush the tears away from another boyfriend who broke her heart. Her dad is an amazing dad, not because he sympathized, but because he empathized and made it up with a movie night or making her dinner when her mother would refuse to see her. And it is killing her that this is how she's remembering the dead. Well, her dad really isn't dead.

He's dead to her, though. Sheik Braring never understands the fact that her dad is an abusive son-of-a-gun, but not on purpose. Her dad, her father, her mom, her mother... the two go through some rough financial times where there's the breaking of glass and dollar bills and relationships. Sheik is punched across the jaw accidentally when her father aims for the TV screen. She is clawing at the locked bathroom door where she hears her dad throwing her mother's stuff all across the floor, muttering and hollering out obscenities.

Of wishing she could've spent one last minute with him before the man died. Again, in her heart only, nowhere else is her father actually dead. Sheik remembers it as if it was yesterday, the lawyer throws his briefcase on his desk, knocking over a container holding pencils and highlighters which tumble to the floor in a tumultuous crash. He winces, running a hand through his hair. He does not need this so early in the morning, the lawyer needs things to go perfectly. Sheik reaches down to pick them up but decides against it. The lawyer will just knock them over again someday. He takes a moment to appreciate the sunrise, the halcyon streams of light shooting out in various directions and it rests on him, giving a moment of calm.

It is that day when Sheik is given the knowledge her parents are divorcing, but plan on remarrying just a few years later down the road. The separation is necessary.

She is surprised, at thirteen that of all the students who have excuses to leave and take a few days, it should be her. But she's not doing that. Sheik Braring is learning an Algebra I concept on quadratics, a course she doesn't even understand, because she feels compelled to do so. It's the right thing to do, to not bail out on the few friends who show up every period for her because they are supposed to. That's how it is meant to be done, and it is rightfully so.

Sheik leans into the window of her car when she manages to get it after getting her license. Her tears are silent up against the cold glass, pressing her forehead against the cool glass while her breath mists up the reflective surface. She runs a few fingers down it, her father's reflection peering out in the horizon. Sheik hasn't slept. She needs sleep. She is so invested in the sunset that she doesn't hear a knock from the other side of her car. Sheik glances over, and a note is tossed in by some guy. A parking ticket. Fancy manuscript says the ticket is from some slimy jerk she'll never know the name of. The meter man's cheery face is a even brighter than usual, but a frown is plastered on his face as he takes in his new victim's dismayed and transfixed state. He tries for the handle, surprised somewhat to see it open. Sheik bites out a curse at him, and the guy who gives parking tickets runs away.

Sheik crosses the street, though she's repeating actions and heads for the parking garage.

The blonde rebel, the one who has caused the nation a whole lot of turmoil, stops her breathing momentarily. This got serious too fast. She bites down on her lip, looking out into the horizon. Sheik is afraid to say that she cares for her father's wellbeing a little bit too much in a non healthy way. The reason why she continues to drink Red Bull and stay up is because she's thinking of the man who's done so much for her and how he's doing, that's what he does and will continue to do as long as things continue going the way they will. How can he just spurt things out like that? Issue is, you can't. You can't just do things like that. It's not healthy.

Something flickers over Sheik's face and she grips the corner of the entrance to the parking garage. The sound of footfall stills, her blood runs cold. She can see the resemblance in her mother to her father, and when there's a mirror, she sees it herself with how she looks like her parents. It is in the hook of the nose, the slightly tilted smile, and now there is blood running down her face in a hallucination. Sheik goes completely white, and she turns around, going to see if the person pausing is a ghost, and not someone real. Sheik sighs, grabbing a new cigarette from the carton, but she does not withdraw her lighter. She is sky writing out the word _Hamlet_ , in the bright red flame, it is like a school board marker almost. She blanches, and 'erases' that, writing it out in blue instead, as the read is from memories she wants banished. Something her father said earlier passes over her. " _Blue is a sympathetic color, like the ocean_." Again, bull.

Sheik is unsure of whether or not to believe him. She runs through the cycle of grief over in her head. This woman is at the anger stage now, but she simply nods her head and dabs at her eyes, trying to shed a few tears. Tears help. They help _good_. Before she can speak again, to say a choked out thank you at the sky to her father, a few bits and pieces of gravel snap out of place, dancing around on the street. Someone on the other side of the stone pillar curses, a familiar voice that brings back too many memories to Sheik's mind, and she quickens her pace further into the dark parking garage. All the muscles in her body tense, like someone is winding up a spring and about to let it loose. She could pounce on him right then and there. Her mind is debating it. It wouldn't be the right thing to do, with her father sitting there and all in her memories, as it is a rude thing to act volatile in front of relatives, but she's just wanting to get everything out in the open, done in a way that it'll hurt beyond what this idiot would be normally expecting.

In those few seconds, each offended party takes a minute to scrutinize each other. Done so with a magnifying glass that shows each flaw in a highlighted color. Sheik sees a man who's lost hope, the guy is thin, and for a moment she actually feels kind of sympathetic, a twinge of remorse flaring up in her heart before it is shut down with a resolving scowl. He looks over at her and sees a woman who despite all she's been through, seems to be very empowered. She believes he's old. He believes she's brave. Each little nitpick builds up a wall that tears itself down the moment the brunette decides to open her mouth. Sheik closes her eyes and the guy vanishes. Did he even exist?

Her thoughts trail off, and for a minute in time, everything freezes as if it had been trapped in amber. Sheik Braring. Mr. Braring. Mrs. Braring. Solace. Both in their twenties, and the former had just gotten married. The two met at a bar, entirely accidental. Back in the day when Mr. Braring used to drink heavily, instead of turning for the noose or knife or pill. He kisses her accidentally, and that part was the only thing done without a true purpose. She is married, and she knew this, while she let him unbutton her dress in a motel bedroom. They had sex that very night on a hampered bed with mice droppings near the floor and mildew stains on the ceiling. They had a cheating relationship for three and a half months, until it is clear Mrs. Braring is starting to show signs of a pregnancy, and then Mr. Braring gets around to ask her the question. When was the last time she had a period?

It all comes crashing down. Mr. Braring just had started teaching, so he bails. He leaves Mrs. Braring one evening when they're standing in front of the hospital. It is pouring, and she calls out his name, but he refuses to turn around and look at her. Never mind her. Doing this to him and everything. She gave birth to a boy and named him something that Sheik forgets to ask. Mr. Braring gets a chance to see him, once, which he takes up, but it was the very last time he ever saw Mrs. Braring, around seven years ago, until he gets back in her lives, and soon Sheik Braring comes out of her mother's womb, bloodied and crying and being a baby.

Everything has gone back to the messed up way it was.

Sheik reaches her car, flings open the door handle, and steps inside. She's never visiting Austin, Texas ever again.

It awakens too many scary memories.

* * *

Shulk runs a hand through his hair, the cellphone against his neck cold and dulling him of all senses. "Are you sure, Corrin? I- I highly doubt this was on purpose..."

"Yes! It matters a whole lot!" Corrin's shrill and sharp voice punctures the air and he's wincing, the blonde recoils from the loudness currently deafening his ear. Corrin continues to preach her case, and Shulk sighs. He cannot simply go and do what she's demanding, no matter how important it is for Syrenet or the country or her chance at being reelected or whatever. "And who cares if it was on purpose or not! He looked at an illegal document, Shulk!"

"I can't do it!" he snaps. "Roy's going to be beyond upset at me if he finds out."

"What Roy doesn't know, won't hurt him," Corrin points out.

"How is he not going to know that his AI unit has been eradicated?"

"We can lie..." Shulk can sense the president smirking wherever she is located.

"Lying doesn't solve all of your problems."

"Do I need someone else to do this job? Are you getting sensible in your old age, Shulk?"

"No, Madam President..."

He hangs up. Shulk Roberts is not in the mood to hear his boss say those things currently, and he's deciding to put a stop to it. The elevator finishes its slow and dreary trek down to the lower floors of Syrenet headquarters. The party, the very important business party and dinner that he is somehow invited to, is starting tomorrow in exactly twenty-four hours. Yet, here he is doing Corrin Etch's dirty work.

The call rouses him up from a pretty good eleven hour slumber as Shulk did not go to bed last night because he's up playing poker with Marth and watching Friends reruns with Pit, and throwing darts with Ike, and saying a fairytale to Lucas because the AI Unit requests he do this so he's somewhat acting like the son Shulk's never had.

Lucas's words have a detrimental impact on Shulk, and it brings him quite close to tears.

Fiora's visiting his dreams once again, and this time the dream is somewhat terrible and terrifying, the other half soothing and gentle and the things Shulk loves about her. However, Shulk is dreaming, standing up, swaying ever so slightly that he's off kilter and he's beyond bothered.

They've liked each other for too long to never intimately share a connection... seemed as if everyone picked up on that but them in the heat of things. It took a drunk party in Fiora's house for him to even yell it out, and she has to yell back in terror half because she wants to live, half because she truly loves the man in front of her; it is a war on both sides, how would you decide what was right to say? The war is the fact that there are government agents pounding down on the door because they request the two show up for some meeting with the freaking senator of New York and his wife for a job prospect that leaves Shulk wounded and Fiora dead.

He's smiling when they break apart from their second kiss after they agreed to date, his glasses askew on the curve of his nose, blonde hair tousled, and that grin reminds her of someone with darker hair, darker eyes, darker intentions... and she freezes. Fiora's skin is crawling with festering diseases, namely paranoia and nightmares, a constant ticking of a time bomb that'll go off whenever it feels like it.

Shulk frowns, there is a change in their room, a little dirty apartment with hardly enough breathing room, his hands are out hovering above her shoulders. _"You okay?"_ _he asks._

She blinks, Fiora has to blink several times before she can respond, and the syllables approach her throat in a yell but are blockaded by regret. If she mentions her, that _Corrin Etch_ , it'll get a ball rolling, it'll cause _him_ to lose his mind, how he punched her, that pallid haired snake when Shulk found out his wife was dead, how he couldn't save her, his Fiora... perhaps even loved her at one point. But it is all a dream, a nightmare, and Fiora's face is hopeless. _"Y'know, her. You reminded me of her, with the smile. She's telling me it is for the greater good of Syrenet that I go, but I have this child and..."_

Eyes narrow threateningly. Shulk backs away from her. _"I thought we got away from that. The consolers and the therapists..."_

" _Everyone slips,"_ Fiora chides admonishingly, turning away from him. " _Sh_ _e punctured us. Syrenet punctured our innocence. Here we all, all eight of us sitting around because we're terrified. We can go see however many specialists you want to Shulk, but we won't be able to forget what happened. No matter how many people soothe us with gentle and kind words will alleviate the fear any less than it already is brimming at. In all fairness, I sort of don't want to forget-"_

Shulk throws his hands up in the air, swearing ( _seriously_ , Fiora, are you serious with me here?), and he's barreling past her to the front door of the apartment, he opens it, slams it, his wave of lemonade hair is gone down the hall drowning in greyscale. She has a hand to her mouth, biting down on her palm to subdue a scream of fury as she crumbles to her knees.

This is what she mentioned, they're punctured, like a balloon and constantly air is leaking so they cannot be rebuilt back together.

Shulk comes back to his nightmare, his standing nightmare a completely changed person.

The night is quiet, Fiora deduces quietly to herself, as she leans over the balcony railing, examining the street down below with her besetting sin of curiosity. Her phone has been going off all night with apologetic texts from Shulk, enticing messages from Ike, and one idiotic dark haired male with a new number who felt graced by some higher up power to let her know that her lover is drunk. Drunk as a skunk type of drunk, with slurred speech and stumbled steps and definite mood swings.

She grips her phone tighter and the slamming of the door. "I'm home!" Shulk announces as if the door slamming was not enough to alert everyone of his presence. His voice slurs together like a rewound tape or old record player, the speed fifty times faster so the noise is dissonant and painful. Shulk covers her ears up. The harsh noise reminds her of people's anguished cries, of gunshots, saws, someone's anguished (albeit fake) screams, and moreso, her pain that will not go away.

 _"Where- where the- where are you?"_ Shulk yells out harshly, stumbling around. There's a resounding crack, Shulk rammed his fist against the sliding glass door, there is a _clink clank_ noise as shards of glass fall to the balcony, and he enters dangerously through the newly made opening onto the terrace. With the bright lights of neon signs that remind him of day-glow and prohibition, he can see somewhat better, and there's Fiora, looking beautiful, cowering away from him. _Cowering_.

 _"Any- anything to say to me?"_ she catches off a sob, looking up slowly. _"You were gone almost the entire night. Midnight is in like an hour."_

 _"I let the hurt go away,"_ Shulk shamefully admits, drifting off to the railing.

 _"Heard from you-know-who that you punched her,"_ Fiora says, though it is almost accusingly said, like nails down a chalkboard type of accusing. " _You punched Corrin the face. You punched our president. In. The. Face!"_

Shulk's jaw locks again, the clenching of his fingers against the railing suggests violent tendencies approaching, but he simmers to a boiling pot of water cooking raw carrots. _"She got in the way again. Perhaps wanted to ruin us once more."_

 _"You were the one who texted her, Shulk. I know you wanted to contact Marth, but in your rage you selected Corrin's number-"_

He's up and pointing a sharp finger in her face, stern, angry, drunk. _"Don't mention her to me! She's a disease."_

 _"Like my paranoia?"_ Fiora lets a single tear fall down her face. _"Like my memory?"_

Shulk feigns back, shocked. _"I-"_

 _"My paranoia of everything in the world is a disease, Shulk. You-"_ she stops, carefully considering her words. _"Corrin started the problem, she's the root of it all,"_ she breaths heavily, but there's more, she's drawing back, and she's drawing back on purpose. _"I can't say it."_

He leans down, places a hand under her chin, he kisses her softly on the lips, and Shulk is back to smiling. _"You can tell me whatever you want."_

Fiora swallows, it is a swallow of dire consequence. He has given her permission, so she speaks. _"Corrin started the problem. You're perpetuating it."_

Her gaze falls, she can no longer look at him. Hurt spreads across his face, almost painstakingly obvious that he's devastated to hear such... such _bull_ on her behalf. Shulk begins to yell so belligerently that pigeons fly away from their coops, but Fiora cannot listen to him now. She wants sleep, she wants a nap. She wants to read over the messages sent from Ike on he and his girlfriend's trip to the Bahamas. _Something_ happy for a change, not the man she loves who is so dead set on trying to patch up the balloon that is punctured beyond belief. Shulk is crying, he is crying. ( _Come back to me, Fiora, please! Don't do this to me! Explain!_ ) Fiora decides, no, she _chooses_ to ignore him.

She had been right all along, she is still right. Corrin hurt them, hurt them in unimaginable ways, but there's an underlying issue there. She helped them too, revealed that life (though expected) won't be easy, their innocence had been punctured, there were dark things out there and all Shulk wanted, _wants_ , to do, is forget those dark things. That they don't exist. That they can't harm her, or their love.

Fiora hugs herself tight, closing her bedroom door as Shulk's sobs wail louder than an orchestra at the Sydney Concert Hall.

"Corrin _started the problem. You're perpetuating it_."

She, perhaps, in that moment, broke Shulk's innocence again. She's a new Corrin to him.

Not like she can take back what she said, right?

...

And just like that Shulk is broken out of whatever random stupor he had been stuck in. His hands are cold and foreign around the door handle to the sleeping quarters of the headquarters. A single disk is placed in the center of the table, and he's pulling out the gun from his pocket, stampeding over to it.

"For Fiora," he mutters. He pulls the trigger. "For Corrin!"

Somewhere, Ness's circle goes dark, and the AI Unit is trapped in an eternal darkness he'll never escape from.

* * *

 **Well gosh diddily darn that was a mean and long chapter! I suppose some things will have to be clarified, eh? It seems like these chapters have gotten longer and longer. SO, I guess I shall explain what happened. Ike is upset at Pit for putting Ike's life in danger, which just like Marth stirs old memories in him that I shall expound upon later, as this is to explore their psyches and I hope it worked. He's remembering the old times where Corrin wasn't mean, and when his mom was alive. Sheik is being paranoid, and she remembers her father, someone that has hurt her and helped her and done many things she's unsure of what to consider them as. Shulk's is cut clear, he has a vision of something that Fiora never said to him, but he thinks she said to him detailing another schism inside his mind. What do you think exactly happened to Ness's AI plate at the end, huh? More answers will be found out with the next chapter, hoping it is just as riveting and such a train wreck as the last time. Please review! I'd love to hear what you thought about this rollercoaster. I also would like those who haven't to vote on my poll on my account about your favorite characters in this story as it'd mean a lot to see whom is the fan favorite. I hope to see you all again, probably around Tuesday or Wednesday with Chapter #14: Damaged Dinner. Thanks for reading! Love you all! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	14. Chapter 14: Damaged Dinner

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #14: Damaged Dinner. This chapter is out a little bit later than usual because of the weird email glitch that alerts are not sent out and since I want to be fair to all of those who are following this story via the actual 'follow' button and those that stop by when appealed to as with the glitch, the story also isn't being bumped up to the top of the updated list meaning people won't know about the chapter actually being there. I am going to have an absolute blast writing this chapter as it is going to about, as you guessed from the title, a dinner party, the same one referenced in Chapter 2 nearly six months ago like good lord that was a long time ago. We'll get to see a plethora of characters, such as Corrin, Cloud, Robin, Shulk, Snake, Mac and Midna. The other stars of the Syrenet cast will appear later in the arc, as this arc centers primarily around the dinner and those characters as a result. Review replies!**

 **Seth the Great- You have the most fascinating commentary, and I am beyond thrilled to see you invested in such a thing like this. Interesting insight on Ness, and yep... there's a huge running trend in these AI Units. What if one happens to get a character killed, hm? And, for your question on dealing with an AI Unit, that'll be explained in a later chapter further down the line, though it isn't too far away. Oh, and for the Shulk question, that'll be revealed even way further down the line, though one of your musings** ** _is_** **correct dealing with him. Ike fights to suppress violent memories, something I referenced last chapter about a 'New Orleans' incident, which you can wonder about what it is till I disclose it.**

 **CrashGuy01- If you liked the dark nature of chapter thirteen, then buckle yourself up mister as the ride is going to get a whole lot bumpier as we progress through this arc and others to come (especially the last arc, Chapter 31-40, it's one heck of a train wreck of emotion) I am hoping however that I am not making every character have some tragic backstory for the heck of it and that they actually all feel different, because besides Cloud, Robin, and Lucas, everyone has done something or been involved in something that has dramatically hurt them.**

 **Thank you two for reviewing so consistently and diligently these past updates, it means a lot. I hope you enjoy Chapter #14: Damaged Dinner.**

* * *

To say that Shulk hates crowds is an understatement. Shulk loathes crowds with as much reason one hates clowns or dying or something tragic or other. The personal business attire is also not something that fits in with his... 'style', as actually the blonde has no idea to describe how he presents himself other than the typical word, and so this fancy, ornate party does not sit well on his skin.

He's huddled over in the back corner of the living room, where everything is just too much white, too much of a moving blizzard or a hazy cup of vodka, where the blending of all colors causes him to have a headache. Shulk longs to be talking to Lucas back at headquarters, the ringing of the gunshot from earlier still echoing around in his head. The AI Unit must be devastated, which Shulk concludes sadly to himself whilst hanging on the fringes of the social buzz. He's never been particularly close to Ness, so having done the professional job required by Corrin is nothing that matters _that_ much to him. What he's fearing, with good reason, is Roy's reaction, and the presumable consequences when Roy discovers who led out the devious 'interrogation'.

His eyes catch hers across the room, and though Shulk tries recalling the woman's name that he's been eying for the past half hour with glasses of Merlot and Chardon and champagne and even draft beers, it isn't coming to him quite fast enough. She slinks over to him, trailing an ever translucent sea foam green dress that hugs her delicate curves. Shulk is happy his wife is dead, or else he'd be rotting in the everlasting furnace for smiling the way he does. The dress combats nicely with the woman's electrifying and heart warming red hair, and then Shulk's brain connects the dots, now regretting even looking at the viper he calls a woman.

"I can tell that this party is not leaving you in the best of moods..." the woman whispers close to him, pulling Shulk out of his nook and cranny, which causes the man to make a sound replicating that of a dying dog. He's clinging to the corner almost in a cartoonish manner, drawing a few giggles, laughs, and oddball stares, but the woman is persistent and the two start to trail around the house.

"And I wonder how you came to that conclusion," Shulk snaps back wittily, downing the drink.

She eyes him with a peculiar competence that freaks him for a split second until her head is set dead ahead at the linoleum floors and elegant paintings dotting the walls. "Do you end every sarcastic comment with a drink?" Her eyes light up like fireflies, and Shulk is enthralled, almost bad enough to where he's unable to concentrate.

"N- no..." he stutters.

"Seems like you do," the woman says, eyes smirking, just like her face.

He folds his arms over his chest, noticeably setting his drink down on the bookshelf that the two are near. It is going to sit there like an insatiable itch on the back of his neck, where his hands will want that drink, they will bemoan for the glass, the craving of the murky wine shall become too great for him to handle... and dammit, he's going to look like the biggest idiot ever in front of the prettiest woman he's seen all night around the fake and phonies atop the fake and phonies. "I'm- I'm sorry, but have we met? I'm pretty sure I'd remember knowing someone like you with that attitude." Shulk's heart twinges some at the remembrance of Fiora, the perfect syrupy sugar sweet balance to the bitter tartness that is the blonde Mr. Roberts.

The woman who actually does not have a drink in her hands, being one of the seldom ones, makes a facial expression that suggests she wants a drink very heavily. "With all the news going around D.C about what happened in Boston, I'm surprised that you don't know who I am. Your protégé currently in the hospital sure knows _who_ I am, though."

Shulk looks at the woman warily. His hand curls around the glass, but it isn't so he can use it to drink. It's a weapon if he smashes it against her head hard enough, though that'll ruin the party and everyone's bubbly persona will fade underneath crimson pools, jagged glass, and hair kissed by fire. "You're Midna Nye, aren't you? Snake's mole in the Collins Arms Dealer corporation..."

Midna laughs, her vibrant and auburn hair highlighting along the walls. "The one and only, Mr. Roberts," she winks at him, a blush creeping up on his cheeks. "Or is Shulk satisfactory?"

"You can call me anything you deem alright."

"Shulk it is then."

"I'm _so_ glad you solved that little hiccup right there."

"And now you're going to take a drink!" Midna exclaims happily.

He takes a drink, which then causes him to stomp his foot, as son of a gun. She is right about his drinking nuances and it's bothering him far more than it should be. Shulk scratches at the back of his neck awkwardly, seeing as there is no way around this elephant in the room. Ike's words come back to haunt him, and the description and details of what happened in Boston to the new recruit are sending images spiraling into and out of his vision. Roy huddled over a pool of blood. Link's ghoulish, empty diamond eyed stare from afar. Midna's hair and bones scattered to the wind. Snake's voice breaking against a crumpled wall... Shulk shudders, luckily Midna having been preoccupied with the moon currently shining outside in the darkening sky.

She beckons him to follow her back into the main living room where the other party guests were still mingling, the chefs in the kitchen nearly finished with the dinner that would be to feed almost forty people. The extra addition of loud banter and belligerent noise helps the two talk about whatever they wish with little prying eyes and ears.

Midna motions at Shulk's glass, the blonde obliging and handing her the drink. She takes a sip, then shrugs, and downs the rest despite the blonde's half-hearted protests. Shulk wants to be able to drive back to Syrenet headquarters with the morning come and being drunk is no way at easily accomplishing that task. Midna's lighthearted gaze that she's been wearing the entire night hardens into something fierce, chills enveloping Shulk's spine. "I spoke to Roy at the hospital two days ago."

"You did?" Shulk's eyes widen imperceptibly, blue irises flaring with hope. "How is he?" he prods when Midna does not divulge any further statements.

"Do you wish to have the good or the bad first?"

"I'm still going to feel terrible knowing there's a bad option, so it doesn't matter."

The redhead straightens Shulk's tie expertly, whilst leaning inward to whisper in his ear so a lady entering through the doorway with too _many_ jewels hanging around her neck does not here the transaction of events happening four feet away from her. "Good news is that Roy is alive and recovering with the stitches from the wound in his leg. Bad news... he reeks of depression."

Shulk snorts, and it isn't a sign that he doesn't care, the man is purely and effortlessly surprised. "Being depressed is one of the criteria that gets you placed into the Syrenet problem. The only person who is underneath the roof that I know of who does not struggle with depression is my AI Unit, Lucas, who's always blissfully happy despite there being many reasons not to be so jolly."

Midna sighs, running a hand through her hair. No one ever truly understands what she's saying, the redhead feels while Shulk's true avoidance of the statement takes hold of her perceptibility. Link Collins didn't listen to her when she advised him to drop the gun, and now there's a bullet hole in that man's forehead, covered in soot at a cemetery where he's buried six feet deep. Her own father does not listen to her when she says that there's a gas leak that she can smell, but he deduces it to being nothing more than the cooked scent of bacon from several hours ago for breakfast. She remembers the feelings of flame lacerating her skin as the house explodes mere moments after she opens her car door to get to work.

"No, Shulk, I am not simply referring to depression all 'Syrenet' employees must have," she throws her hands up at waist level, indicating there's more behind her words. "He's depressed as he believes everyone is disappointed in him. No one's stopped by to visit him except for me, and he gets out of the stupid hospital in less than 48 hours. I'm the only person he's seen since last weekend's admittance, and I'd say that's quite a terrible situation to be in if you ask me."

He stirs at these words, blanching visibly. Midna hands him back his drink, winking, and off she goes into the crowd, blending amidst the gathered where the last Shulk sees of her is the blurred tornado of ripe ruby red hair, a frolic dancing against a man's sheer black suit, and she's gone. Shulk squeezes his eyes shut, unsure whether or not to relegate the... 'encounter' he had with her be a simple hallucination, or everyone is playing him up as if he's some crazy man.

Someone else's presence is registered by Shulk's side, and when the hand clamps down on his shoulder, he yelps, the blonde's drink going everywhere. Shulk's heartbeat slows down to regular speed after a few moments, the breathing taken right out of him with his scream. A hearty chuckle fills the void of silence from Shulk's cry of terror, and it is a sound that is all too familiar to her ears. He turns and his terrified expression morphs into a one of pure delight.

"If I hadn't been scared out of my wits just now, I would've hugged you!" Shulk greets, throwing his arms out to envelop the stranger in a hug.

The stranger is FBI director Snake Karlo, the man looking completely different from when Roy had seen him last in Boston a few days ago. Snake isn't wearing a typical dark sort of suit, but rather something a little bit lighter, a coarser brown, almost like oak or mahogany. His beard is gone, leaving behind a pale face that has seen too many winters and battles and too much blood. An irreplaceable glow sits in his eyes that is warm and welcoming. He pats Shulk on the back, a bottle of Coolers Light resting in his lax grip.

Snake tips his bottle across the living room of crowded men and women to Midna, who is now by the bar chatting up this gentleman that Shulk has never seen before. Her hair is as vibrant as ever, looking brighter and stronger than some of the lights flickering on and off in the house. "I take it that you've met the little starlet. Midna is... well, she's quite the handful."

"That she is," Shulk laughs with the man. He hasn't seen the FBI director in quite some time, the last the blonde recalls even talking with the man was about a year ago for some Syrenet intelligence conference that generally had most of the Washington D.C national security personnel in the room. The last time the two fought together side-by-side was in Tahiti, the summer of 2088, when Fiora had first come to Shulk with the idea in her head about becoming a surrogate, but Shulk shoots in down as it is way too much money, and the president needs him alongside the FBI to kill some rugged group of assassins. His expression sobers at the thought, and he looks at Snake, realizing that if he apologizes to Midna about Boston, he also needs to apologize to the man who coordinated the entire operation. "Snake, I- I gotta say thank you."

"For what?" Snake lifts an eyebrow up. The man never expects people to compliment him on his work. He's another trained soldier, a simple peon in the world of the United States and its policies. He has no desire for global recognition, or apparently even local praise as the tips of his ears flush a putrid scarlet in slight embarrassment. "I can't imagine I've done anything-"

"Boston," the Alpha commander of Syrenet elaborates, and it is the one word that gets Snake to dip his head low in a nod, lips pursed, and eerily calm. "For saving Roy and killing that wicked two timing double crosser."

Snake looks back up at Shulk and there's the readable emotion of sadness reflecting back at the blonde. "It's nothing to congratulate me or thank me about, Shulk. I was doing what I do in the line of work and there's all it is to it. That reminds me, I need to go and see how the boy is doing after all. I only got a word in before he had been whisked away on a helicopter to the hospital. I sustained nothing more than a bullet hole to the hip, and even then it only grazed me. He got... he got the worst end of the stick, that's for sure."

The blonde starts to get uncomfortable with all this war talk, especially as he's a close and comforting man of many tastes, and sometimes war is not one of the conversations he likes discussing. Shulk rubs his shoulder innocuously, taking a sip. He wants to search out in the vast unknown for a topic that is far more enjoyable and one that can lighten his mood. He scans over the crowd, about twenty to twenty-five men and women collected in the space between the couch and kitchen counter. He realizes that there are plenty of people in the room he does not know. Shulk hasn't been invited to too many parties at his forty year-old age.

Shulk takes a sip of his drink, leaning back up against the wall. "So, how many parties of Corrin's have you been to?" he asks.

Snake laughs, making a wry smile. "Too many. Way too many," he smiles. That is true. It feels like the white haired maiden is dragging the man everywhere she goes, even when it has nothing to _do_ with him, as it should, and there's all this applause, and the noise gets louder and louder and louder and louder and louder and louder and- "Corrin wants me to come with her all the time, and I think it's purely because she wants someone's company that she can stand. From what I know, Robin and her do not get along all the time, but I hardly know the reason why."

"Is there anyone here that you don't know?"

"Oh, there's plenty. I'd like to keep it that way," Snake chuckles. He downs a sip of the beer. "What I like doing when I'm bored at these really soporific events, in which they really are just tandems of high class socialites discussing lord knows what, is to look at someone I don't know and try and guess how they were allowed to show up."

"Oh?" Shulk raises an eyebrow. That seems like quite the harmless game, a rather fun game if anyone was to ask him. "Anyone here you wish to... scrutinize?"

"How about... her?" Snake says, pointing.

Shulk follows his gaze and the two of them are looking at a middle aged woman in the middle of the room, talking to a guy that the blonde thinks is a member of the EPA, but he isn't quite sure. What is probably giving the gentleman she is talking to a heart attack is the poor raven practically hanging around her neck, with plucked midnight feathers poking from the shoulders of her putrid and sickening yellow vomit dress that makes the FBI director purely want to hurl while looking at it. A clunky ring of topaz sits on her right hand at the wrong finger, resting against her pointer knuckle, bouncing and dipping constantly with her every movement. She's a hand talker, as she is probably telling whimsical tales of her youth to the presumable EPA agent that is no older than thirty, and she has to be in her near seventies.

"What do you think her story is, then?"

Snake rubs his chin, looking thoughtfully, a smile resting on his lips. "I'm guessing her name is Dolores or something completely stereotypical like a Marta. She's in her mid-seventies give or take. This... Marta, knows Corrin because she accidentally bumped into her at the airport, and she spills her coffee all over the president and is fearing for her life. She begs and begs for some forgiveness, but Corrin isn't a killing woman over coffee and invites her to the next gala or gathering she is hosting. Marta, wanting to impress Corrin, wears the best outfit she has in her closet, and her best jewels. I hardly believe the president will be... blown away by this spectacle."

The blonde's gaze follows over to Midna and the guy who's a complete stranger to him, laughing at the redhead's facial expression when she catches mere glimpses of this woman. "I think your fellow partner in crime is getting quite the eyeful."

"Oh, is she now?" Snake jokes back with him, downing the rest of his beer.

In fact, Midna is indeed having the time of her life with quite the eyeful of not only the crazy dressed woman in the center of the living room, but with the gentleman she is talking to, a Mr. Mac Sarasota. She loves his name, loves it perhaps too much and that's something she hopes to all things mighty won't be an issue in the coming months. She appreciates the way his eyes light up just enough to be showing off true emotion, but done well enough that you'll never know what he's truly thinking. Mac currently is downing a water bottle while everyone around him is getting drunk up a storm to the ever high heaven, and she's prodding around like a hyena sniffing a cactus.

"Why aren't you drinking?" she asks in between a sip of some new fancy wine she finds on the counter near the refrigerator. Out of the corner of her eye she can see Shulk and Snake chattering away like old time college buddies, which causes the redhead to roll her eyes. The only person she _actually_ knows in the entire room is Snake, and she's perfectly okay with it. However, her new mission since nothing has been assigned is to get to know the ever curious and ever so handsome Mac Sarasota. Why? Because Midna Nye can.

Mac grimaces slightly, shrugging his shoulders. "It's just not my style, I suppose. It used to be, though."

"Oh? And what drink did a man such as yourself indulge himself with?"

He stretches his arms wide, yawning as if the party is boring. Midna loves hanging on the outskirts of the carpeted living room floor and just catching all the random buzz that flits and floats about with the denizens of Corrin and Cloud's cliffside mansion. "The classic Jack and Coke, ma'am."

Midna crinkles her nose. "Ma'am?"

All the color in Mac's face drains, and he's throwing his arms out and shaking his hands back and forth at her so she spares his life. "Sorry! It's just an old habit I get! I- I... I'm sorry I didn't mean to make you sound as if you're-"

"Relax, Mac. I'm just busting your chops," the redhead places a comforting hand on his right shoulder, the two talking from across one of the kitchen counters. "I am hardly that old to be called ma'am, though, and if you call me it again I'll castrate you."

The secret service agent laughs nervously, pulling at the collar of his dress shirt and then straightens his tie, face all flushed out. He has never found a woman so attractive in his life, her dark and robust skin color, perhaps coupled with a glorious tan sending rivets of shock up and down his spine, walking him up. Mac hopes his hair looks somewhat decent as he had to chase a little toddler around the premises earlier in the day when one of the patrons brought their adopted daughter he had wanted from Guatemala. She sneakily climbs a tree, the desperate father demands the girl comes back, poor Mac is dragged by his other secret service friends - for being the last man on the totem pole - to get her down. He manages to, and then a branch snaps and down he goes, getting dirt, dust, pollen, and poor thorns all over his suit, which looks as if it's been in a war zone. Catching Midna's eye from across the living room makes him forget all about the pain.

"Well, I don't have a dating life so I'm pretty sure I wouldn't miss it," Mac chortles.

"You? Without a dating life? You're gorgeous."

"Flattered," Mac smiles. _God, his smile._ "You aren't too bad yourself."

"As expected..."

"Slight ego?"

Midna places a hand underneath her chin, looking deep into his olive eyes, which causes a blush to settle on the poor man's cheeks. "I've never seen you around here before, and I've been dragged too many numerous parties. How were you invited?"

This places a grin on Mac's face and he looks down at his feet abashedly. "I was hand selected by Miss Wyndel to become one of the president's secret service agents. Previously I was a security guard at a Wal-Mart," he makes a jazz hands gesture, causing Midna to giggle. "I was _totally_ living in the big bucks, and I knew it too!"

She laughs with him, grinning and smirking. "It does sound like you were living quite the amazing life, Mac. I'd be proud of that, for sure."

"And you?" Mac takes a sip of his water bottle, finishing it and crumbling it up in his hands like a paper plate, which fascinates Midna. He gives her a look, up underneath his brow and it causes the redhead's world to stop completely, her own eyes caught in a whirlwind of emotion that leaves her paralyzed. She must've looked stunned for a second as the secret service agent is furrowing his eyebrows together, waving his hand in front of her face. "And what about you?" he asks again.

Midna blinks, looking around dazed and confused. "Oh... me? I am one of the FBI's top agents. Director Karlo drags me whatever place he can without killing me. It is quite the task, if I do say so myself, but I digress."

"Huh," Mac nods. Midna is thinking this is the worst thing in the entire world, like she's completely proved herself to be nothing short of a dud muffin and he's lost interest. Lo and behold, the man places a hand against his cheek, smiling. "I think that's rather neat. You and I should spar sometime."

"Oh? You wouldn't have your pride beaten by a girl?" Midna jokes.

"As if," he snorts back at her. The two break into raucous laughter, which earns a few looks of disproving, contemptuous glares that makes Midna give them all the finger. Anyone looking at them turns around quickly, afraid she'll take some names and kick some ass, but it's all in the good spirit of things. The redhead is willing to bet she is not as cognizant as usual when inebriated, as she's had four or five drinks already. Mac flexes his muscles in a very pathetic manner, obviously making a show of himself. "These guns had to wrestle kids from stealing candy, and ma'am, I don't think you can handle their firepower."

She raises an eyebrow at her, and then decides that she only lives once. "Is that so?"

"Totally."

Midna perhaps does what is the most stupid thing of her entire life, and there have been a few, placing a kiss right on Mac's lips, pulling him forward by grabbing his tie and tugging him towards her. He's caught off guard, as most would be in this sort of situation, hands unsure of where to go, so he places them against the sides of her face, her hands tugging at the shirt.

"Should we- should we go somewhere private?" Mac whispers to her.

"I'd think that'd be for the best..." she agrees.

The redhead gets up and drags poor Mac off with her, the two stumbling giddily into a bathroom before the evident sound of the door locking is heard by a few dancing and drinking by said bathroom. The stares continue for a few seconds till everyone acts as if nothing had happened. Which, is perfectly okay in their book. Stuff like this happens all the time. Just ask Corrin and Cloud.

Over in the kitchen is Robin Wyndel, the vice president in deep conversation with one of the lectures of anatomy at Harvard, and she's currently trying to act as fascinated as possible with the rather boring and trite discussion of brain cells and their connection to STEM cell research, and Robin wishes she could just go back to bed. Now that she thinks about it, she hasn't seen Corrin at all since the beginning of the party, the president entirely consumed by her husband's presence and the arrival of people who apparently mean something to her.

Robin is so distracted in her 'listening' that her gaze wanders over to Midna and Mac, and her Grinch like heart that does not exist manages to grow every time she witnesses Mac smile. He's a little precious teddy bear in her eyes, a man who's been stumbling around like a lost puppy and now he's grounded, experiencing the fruits of the world that allow him a fraction of happiness. When she watches the two of them kiss, her eyes sparkle and she feels like a mother standing on the sidelines as their baby grows up and graduates. She's so enthralled in watching the two stumble into the restroom that she doesn't even notice the person she's talking to walk away in disgust, being replaced by the FBI director himself.

Robin Wyndel is not particularly swoon over like the other women in the establishment by Snake's good looks, charm, or whatever he's calling it nowadays. She is no longer holding onto any glass of wine as she gave up on trying to become drunk hours ago, and by the looks of things, her new buddy is just now starting his journey into an alcoholic hangover. Sounds like so much fun.

"You looked one hundred percent invested in that conversation," Snake nudges her, a new chilled bottle of beer resting in his right hand. He takes a sip and settles it down on the counter. "I think that's the same face you have whenever Corrin mentions any sort of political gathering. You need to stop looking so disinterested. It gives off the bad kind of vibes."

"And what, pray tell, Snake, would you know anything about 'bad vibes', hmm?" Robin places her hands on her hips, making a not-so serious facial expression that makes Snake bellow with the vibrations of a snare drum echoing in his vocal cords. She is downright precious with her blizzard hair in a bun bouncing up and down as she gives him the stink eye.

"I think you've forgotten what I am in our government, Robin," the FBI director crosses his arms over his chest. "It is my inexplicitly stated job as FBI director to read people, and I don't think you do a very good job at hiding your true emotions."

"True emotions..." Robin sputters. "I'll have you know that I do a _very_ good job at hiding my emotions from people. Thank you _very_ much."

He gives her a look that reads anything other than belief, and Snake almost wants to chastise her. Snake turns his lip up into a smirk, taking another sip before sighing loudly and purposefully, which elicits a glare from the vice president somewhere in his general direction, but he looks around haplessly. "Well, then prove me wrong. Were you or were you not completely bored out of your mind with the conversation that you had?"

She bites down on her tongue. Robin has no idea why she ever decided as a teenager to want to enter politics. It is a lot of ripping hair out of her head moments, too many dollar signs and bruised egos and spreadsheets. A lot of bright flashes from cameras and the obnoxious voices of reporters who don't know anything about personal space, their ugly mugs and pimpled faces two inches from Robin's where she can smell their three day old pizza breath and see their hollowed out eyes that are mere empty shells of a black void oozing the ripe and staunch stench of desperation.

"Okay," the silverette caves. "I downright hated listening to him."

Snake's eyes twinkle a glow of triumph, and he settles a hand precariously against her shoulder which she shrugs off. He sighs. This woman will never be beat. "First rule in being an FBI agent. Everyone is always watching you, and you're always watching them. Do not let anyone see you sweat. It works in any circumstance. Because, since you had been so disinterested, you also missed the guy you were speaking to flip you off and utter a few not scholarly like words in your direction."

Her face flushes a pure and angry scarlet, hands curled into fists, but Snake presses gently as she can see the sleaze ball from across the room and it takes all of Robin's willpower and Snake's resistance to not launch herself forward and pummel the ungrateful ingrate. Robin searches desperately for a way to channel her anger, fingers latching for the gilded cross necklace around her throat, deciding to spin around and play with it. When she speaks, her voice has lost all confidence. "So what? One man's opinion to my hideous reaction. Big whoop."

"It's a big whoop like the one that got Roy nearly killed in Boston," Snake reprimands, his face darkening somewhat. Robin blanches at the thought of the poor redhead Syrenet employee, as she hasn't gotten a chance to meet him in person and almost missed the opportunity had he died. "Roy panicked in hopes of probably pleasing Corrin and myself on the mission and forgot everything he should in dealing with crisis situations such as the one he was in. I smelled his fear from miles away, even when I met him as he isn't the best at keeping his emotions in check."

"I can't very well say that my emotions would lead to something like _that,_ " Robin counters, and the wringing of the cross continues. Her thoughts flash over Midna and Mac's interaction. "Is the redhead girl with you Midna? The same on the Boston trip?"

"That'd be the one. She's- she's trying to not think about what happened." the FBI director shuffles his shoes awkwardly.

"The two of them looked happy together. It's what I had been staring at."

"Lovely indeed," the two share a chuckle. "Did you see how his face lit up when she kissed him? Midna is a hopeless flirt, but she hardly actually kisses someone outside of a mission. I haven't known her to be the dating type, so let's cross our fingers and hope it isn't a one night fling where both parties involved feel terrible afterwards. Ten bucks says you wish that right now, you were Midna and I was Mac." Oh boy, Snake is crossing into thin ice territory now.

Robin closes her eyes, not comprehending the full scale doom of his question, smiling gracefully. "One hundred percent..." her voice trails off, and then she snaps her eyes open, looking at Snake in an unrelenting fury, pounding his shoulder incessantly. "Wait, what? Are you suggesting what _I_ think you're suggesting? As if I'd do it with you!"

Snake laughs and the two return to like they're in high school. "And what if I am?"

"Not on your life, sport."

The two share one more laugh and Snake bids her a quick and hushed goodbye, before grabbing his beer bottle and vanishing somewhere else into the house. Robin leans back against the counter, a devilish smile placated on her face. "That man is downright foolish..." she whispers to herself, not entirely opposed to the thought, but it's not like she's going to tell him that. It'd be the ever lasting end to her.

She looks around the crowd, and her stare catches the person she hasn't seen the entire night. Corrin's.

The president is bent into conversation with her husband, and Robin only wants to know what they're talking about as her best friend's face is lit brighter than a chandelier, Lumiere has got nothing on her!

Corrin bats at her husband's arm playfully, Cloud smirking along with her.

"Don't let Robin hear what you just said! She'll probably kill you on the spot." the president winks with her husband, the two standing together under the arched walkway into the dining room where the chefs and butlers and maids were currently setting the table.

"Maybe it'd be a good thing," Cloud muses in jest. "It'd get me away from you, as currently you're the worst thing in the world. I can hardly stand you."

Cloud is taller than Corrin by a good six or seven inches, her husband's height being a domineering 6'3, his tornado of lemonade hair only adding to the sheerness of scale. His diamond eyes appraise over the house with a jovial light, face laden in a smile as he watches the patrons completely swallowed whole by the buzz of interaction and bliss. His shoulders are broad and cloaked underneath a crisp midnight suit, pearly white tie, and a firm handshake to top things off. His smile is so counterintuitive to Corrin's, that when he flashes an A+ grade grin, you cannot help but feel welcome, whereas his wife flashes an iconic smile meaning she has plotted your death alongside your entire family.

No one believes they are truly together, but it's all hearsay created by the journalists and reporters to try and boggle down the amazing and accomplished feats of the Etch administration. When the two married, Corrin's highest wish that Cloud dutifully fulfills is that their names are still kept unchanged, that she remains Corrin Etch and he be still Cloud Gladwell. Corrin relays the information to him over one typical cocktail dinner as her words act like a safe holder. She doesn't want her bad deeds to catch up with her and hurt his entire reputation by having the same last name. He thinks she's being too sweet and too precautionary, as this happens before Corrin Etch even has a formulated an idiotic fathom at becoming the president of the United States.

Corrin takes his insult, though meant to be a harmless joke, in stride. "Keep your tongue in check, honey. You don't want to lose it." He laughs at her threat with as much mirth as he does when being insulted any such other time, but his wife isn't exactly playing games. He knows this by the dangerous light playing out in her eyes, the 'harmless' smirk that she tosses out so effortlessly, and Cloud kisses her temple to keep her at bay.

"I can witness your beauty with only my ears and eyes, Corrin. I don't need to speak, it only ruins the moment."

"You got that right," Corrin chuckles, ignoring his sweet talk. The senator of New York squeezes her shoulder, turning behind him as a chef announces that dinner is ready. His face elates, as he's been starving for a good few hours and planning out this entire dinner party with the many guests has been quite the chore, and quite the chore it has turned out, where he has to dig into _his_ wallet for funds makes it the icing on the cake.

"Dinner is ready, darling," he announces to his wife, and her face matches that of his.

Corrin grabs her wine glass which is full to the brink, spilling some to the carpet. A sizzle of Merlot tips out and it splatters everywhere. The putrid violet stain reminds her of Fiora Roberts' blood for a few seconds, and her vision hazes over, jagged lines of static disrupting the pallid carpet and her husband's worried, reflective stare. The president regains her composure, taking a knife from the table and gently tapping it against the glass.

It manages to get everyone's attention, including the stragglers when Corrin's mind distraction over Fiora's blood resemblance to the Merlot stain causes her to slice the stem of the glass entirely in two, the rest of the goblet coming down with her, soaking the president's hand in a tart and purplish liquid. Her eyes go as wide as saucers, steam practically pouring out of every orifice in her body, Cloud biting down on his lip so he doesn't laugh.

She blows a tuff of hair out of her eyes, and tries to not notice the drops of liquid currently going _drip-drip_ off of her fingertips, or the coagulation of sticky wine like the coagulating of ripe, fresh crimson blood. Corrin's hateful sneer twists grotesquely into a brazen smile. "Dinner is ready ladies and gentlemen! And I guess, so is the wine carpet. Come taste at your own discretion! Refunds will not be given if you get a few cats hairs along with a sample!"

A few people laugh at her joke, which raises Corrin's spirit as she turns into the dining room with evident disgust in how she walks. Cloud follows at her heels, and so does a few disgruntled and gay guests, their laughter abounding high up into the air. Snake and Robin follow soon after, the latter's face turned into a frown as she's completely stuck and pondered over the fact that she doesn't remember Corrin ever mentioning a cat, and she for certain knows that Cloud is allergic to the furry beasts, so she's completely perplexed.

Midna manages to hear Corrin's announcement of food, and since she's as hungry as a ravenous bear, she rips herself and Mac out of the bathroom, both completely disheveled. Her hair has come undone, flowing down like locks of lava against her tanned back. Mac's suit is rustled, hair a mess, lipstick stains marked all over his cheeks. He zips up his dress pants as someone kindly mentions his fly is down. She takes him by the hand and drags him with her.

Shulk is the last to trudge into the dining room, vision starting to blur slightly from the apparent alcohol running rampant through his veins. He is unable to see clearly, but it isn't stopping him from embarrassing perhaps the most important person in the world. He steps into the dining room, which is far larger than anything at Syrenet. A long, wooden table painted a rich and suave dark chocolate brown is in the center, elaborate and ornate napkins with a fancy golden trim lacing the outer edges placed at each seat. In the center between the forks, knives, and spoons which are a stainless bronze, is a plate that reflects off the truly gorgeous chandelier hanging above the table.

He's in awe, noted by his wide, gaping open mouth. Shulk is quick to shut it, in case he wants flies to come zipping in and make a home in his tonsil cavity. There's one seat remaining, the table wide enough to hold about forty people, stretching a good twenty to thirty plus feet than an average table, Corrin and Cloud situated together at the left end of the table, Robin on the other side. Mac, Midna, and Snake all sit in a line luckily, a wicked blush settled on both of the lovebirds faces. The last seat remaining for Shulk is right by the vice president, and she smiles comfortingly at him to take a spot.

The blonde sits, Corrin introduces everyone at the table, claps her hands, and the feast begins.

Waiters and waitresses bust out of the kitchen doors, carrying trays and trays of food. Shulk thinks he's never seen this much food in his life before, even when he and Fiora's reception had been _paid_ for by Corrin's enormous wedding fund. He snorts at the thought that the president of the United States, before she became the royal and prestigious title that she is, set aside in her checkbook an entire folder for weddings that wouldn't include her own.

The first plate placed down in front of Shulk is a simple Cesar salad. He wrinkles his nose at it; he's never been a fan of the anchovy dressing. However, this salad is nothing much than extraordinary. The lettuce is neatly trimmed, which makes him think of the metaphor as if lettuce were fingernails, which worsens his appetite even further. A bed of emerald green rests in the bronze bowl, followed by croutons of many shapes, sizes, and even colors. He bites into one and immediately a savory flavor explodes into his mouth, followed by something sweet. Looking at fellow reactions from around the table, he's not the only one. As he is digging inside the bowl for a piece of grilled chicken, grilled so perfectly that the black sear lines spell words in the meat, Shulk notices that Midna has not even touched her plate, and by that he means she hasn't lifted her napkin from her side or lifted her utensils. She's chatting with Mac and Snake like it's nothing, yet neither man is saying something. Shulk frowns, shrugs his shoulders, and goes back to eating.

Following the salad is soup, which makes Robin clap her hands like a giddy school girl. The Alpha commander of Syrenet asks what was the sudden devolution of going from adult woman to toddler for, but then finds out when the bowl is placed in front of him. His mouth waters hungrily, well beyond even the most extreme form of hunger, if that was possible. Inside the bowl is a fiery tortilla chicken soup, and he's looking at vegetables and bread types that he has never seen before. He takes a bite, and what hits him first is the perfect pinch of salt. Shulk's mouth nearly splits in two at the downright riveting taste of salt followed by a softer taste of the broth and black and pinto bean mix. A bite of chicken is next with a piece of rye bread stuck on the side, and he's divulging into another salt cavity. Shulk thinks he's going to get gout if he continues eating ravenously at this rate.

The entrée is a seared piece of lamb, which is something Shulk Roberts is able to say he has never had in his life. A few pieces of grilled asparagus top it, and the lamb sits nicely on a mesh of collard greens and on the side, in a small bowl is some pasta called orzo. He digs a spoon into the pasta, taking a bite. A sweet taste of cheese and delicately spun thyme mix causes his eyes to water at the sheer joy. By the actions of everyone at the table, they're eating it just as heartily. A bone is sticking out of the lamb chop, rugged and coarse and brown, but Shulk tears through the meat akin to ripping open presents like it's Christmas morning. His fork, knife, and spoon are stained all sorts of crazy colors and combinations, the flavor of dinner swishing around with no clear cut winner so far. Refreshments are tiny shot glass mimosas, and if Shulk thought the room had been spinning before hand, it must be revolving as fast as Mercury.

Dinner is something that Shulk enjoys, but he takes more pride in relishing in dessert more. Dessert is placed in front of him, and the sound that comes out of Shulk's throat is that between a delayed whine and a croak of pure and utter gluttony. A ripe piece of chocolate pie sits on the plate, and Robin says it's called European Truffle. It is a chocolate pie with a chocolate crust, followed by a chocolate sponge cake, a creamy and suave mousse center, followed by more cake, the rest of the pie crust, a swirl and tsunami wave of slightly mahogany and coral whip cream, and to top it off, a decadent chocolate ganache. As Shulk is currently enjoying every tantalizing second of dinner, Midna still pushes her plate away for the fourth time, claiming she is not hungry, and her lack of food is filled up by more and more glasses of vodka.

All the dinner guests begin to finish chowing down when Corrin stands up at the other end of the table. She thinks about hitting her new glass of champagne to get everyone's attention, but flashbacks of the living room hit her with the force of a truck, causing her to blanche. Corrin stops and whispers in a server's ear, and the man dutifully nods, retrieving a simple bell from his pocket. She takes it earnestly and jingles it.

In a matter of five seconds, which Shulk knows because he counted, all talk has ceased at the table, and it is pure silence - a ghost town that is lively yet dead at the same time - and a creepy itch has stitched itself to his skin. Shulk breaths in as quietly as he can while Corrin straightens herself up. She looks completely pleased with herself over something unknown, and the blonde has a strange suspicion he's about to find out really fast what the entire dinner has been about.

"Cloud and I wanted to thank you all personally for coming and eating with us tonight!" Murmurs of agreement follow around. Corrin gives the room eye contact that sends shivers down Shulk's spine. "And now that everyone has eaten, I have an announcement to make."

Everyone sits forward, and Robin for some reason reaches across the table to grab Shulk's hand. The blonde flashes the vice president a look that is half deranged, half confused. The longing feeling of dinner and dessert is still resting on his tongue, happy and content that it is not replaced by a bitter taste instead. The vice president has a vice grip on Shulk's arm, fingernails digging into his skin. He winces in pain, as Corrin continues to speak.

"As I am pretty sure you all remember, we all have a Syrenet employee in our midst! Mr. Shulk Roberts!" she shouts, thrusting a hand outwards in his direction. Every pair of eyes in the room flashes to Shulk, immediately scaring him, the blonde jumps and clangs his knee against the table. "Say hello, Shulk." Corrin prods gently, though he sees the fire in her eyes, and it is a dangerous, all consuming one that threatens to destroy everyone who dares oppose her. Cloud stirs somewhat uncomfortable in his seat, eyes sizing Shulk's up, and he reads the emotion of a plea in the two diamond orbs.

Shulk gives a wave akin to the new kid arriving and interrupting a class where he's likely to be turned into a pulp, face probably very pale. "Umm... hello?"

Corrin's face goes through seven stages of rage, rather than seven stages of grief, and she tilts her head dangerously to the right. "As you all know, Syrenet has become one of our brand new efforts in our administration to keep the peace in our divided nation by providing jobs and technological advances around the country, from sea to shining sea and maybe all around the globe if we're lucky."

Robin gives another squeeze to Shulk's hand. "Please try and stay calm..." she whispers.

"What are _you_ talking about?" Shulk hisses back at the vice president.

Corrin's expression impasses as she witnesses the two of them have their 'private' moment. "If you all remember, which I'm sure you do, that our last effort at establishing a branch for Syrenet in Oklahoma had been a failure. Oklahoma City devastated us all, and it made me reconsider all my options. Now, I am ready to make this heartfelt and genuine announcement that no one here other than Robin knows about."

His mind is going fifty million miles a minute, all these possible guesses running rampant. He's debating on a few, such as Syrenet is meshing into perhaps the FBI, or perhaps the president is deciding to cancel it.

What he is not expecting, is this...

"Syrenet will be trying to launch with a conjoined effort from the FBI, a branch in Chicago, Illinois in a week's time." Corrin announces. Right then and there, the entire world goes to hell.

All the color drains out of Shulk's face, and he's feeling very sick. He isn't expecting this. Midna's face drains of color as well, for an entirely different reason.

Corrin's words reverberate inside the blonde's skull, and that sickness plunges from his stomach out through his throat.

However, over at Midna's spot, she vomits all over the table first.

Shulk soon follows suit.

* * *

 **There we are ladies and gentlemen! Chapter #14: Damaged Dinner, is done! This took me two days exactly to type, 3K on Saturday, and 6K today on Sunday. Man, here we are with a 9K chapter guys, now _this_ is the largest chapter of the story when to be honest I hadn't been expecting something this monstrous for what I personally feel as half filler / half important, as this last section with Corrin's announcement, Mac and Midna's talk, and Robin and Snake's talk mattered the most. But, wow! A lot did happen, and you all did learn a lot! Do you guys think Midna / Mac is a fling or a relationship? And what about Robin / Snake for old times sake, right Seth? Teach Me How to Cry cameos and references here! And what do you think about Corrin's announcement, as this is what Arc 3 is going to be about... the plan that Syrenet is to try and place a branch in Chicago, Illinois. However, what do you think is wrong with Midna and why she wasn't eating and why she threw up? Clearly it isn't something Shulk is plagued by. Any guesses? I want to say thank you so much for reading, and please review! I'd love to know what you all thought about the chapter! And go vote on my poll if you haven't, it's about your favorite Syrenet characters! Currently I think Ike and Corrin are both in the lead. I hope to post Chapter #15: Stone Sacrilege by Friday, and then we'll be off into the worst part of this arc. Have an amazing day! I love you all! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	15. Chapter 15: Stone Sacrilege

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, #15: Stone Sacrilege. Time to make the obligatory comment on this being very late, but I can thank finals and AP exams to that folly and nonsense. Now, it is the ripe and red summer of my upcoming senior year, so we have a lot to cover and get through. I really want to be up to at least Chapter 25 by the time I start school somewhere early August, but that's if I am up to snuff lol. I do have other stories in the work and** ** _many_** **on the way, but that is another matter I'll address entirely. Review replies!**

 **SeththeGreat- It will always be a welcoming sight! Your thoughts are pensive and ask a lot of questions that it seems I am readily available to answer. Robin and Snake are perhaps my renown unorthodox OTP, noting you found the duo to be interesting from the TMHTC days. And Robin is not married, no. I hope I'm doing Snake a little bit of justice, and at the very least creating something you find enjoyable too. For Midna, all I can say is that she shall live everything to the fullest as possible, even if it kills her. Interesting thought about Corrin. If you're at all into or know something about Game of Thrones, I find her character to be a darker Margarey Tyrell, someone who is sweet and plays the game nicely, but in turn truly has her own motives up her sleeve.**

 **CrashGuy01- I'm glad the idea worked! I hope I get to really build up character interactions with this story, as I think every story needs strong characters to back them up. What is your opinion of the arc so far? I hope it is good! This may sound insulting, but I don't know anyone who'd vomit just because she's together with someone. Last chapter, I specified that she never ate anything and vomited afterwards which could be a plethora of other hinted reasons. The last two arcs, let's just say, will be violent and heart wrenching. I'll leave it at that.**

 **This chapter is one of those, the 'morning after' type of deals, so do with that what you want. Enjoy Chapter #15: Stone Sacrilege of Syrenet.**

* * *

He registers their presence, but decides to not say anything. Roy bites down on his tongue hard to suppress a scream, hard enough that lucid copper fills his mouth and stains his gums with an all too familiar red that burns at his flesh. The man is currently curled up in on himself like a ball, shuddering to keep warm as the heater on the opposite end of the wall broke long ago... too long for it to go unnoticed, for that matter. The redhead's breaths are shaky, but strong all the same. However, his companions do not see the same sort of spirit.

Ike looks down at his hands helplessly, an unreadable emotion coursing through his facial muscles. Pit is much more revealing in his response, mouth dropped open, the computer hooked underneath his arm almost crashing to the floor as he forgets it is there. Silence passes over the trio momentarily, an awkward enough silence where the chirping of crickets in the dark can be heard outside, though the room is ten stories up. Roy sees the outline of Ike's bulking form, but no smile dares stretch across his lips now. Where were his friends at the time he needed them? Probably drinking or spending their hours with Corrin as it seems like everyone in Syrenet besides him were looped around the white bitch's fingers.

Pit fumbles around for a light switch, and halcyon bursts of brightness flood the room. Roy shrieks, going underneath the covers again. He hasn't seen their holographic glow ever since Midna visited him two days ago, and a whole day without mechanical light is quite jarring. Roy throws the sheets off his face, mustering a glare at Pit. The technician falters in his step somewhat at the visibly enraged gesture. He sets the computer down on the table near to him, but Ike pushes the interaction a little further, clearing his throat and stepping up to the end of the bed, clamping his hands on the wrought metal. The redhead jumps, glare now directed towards the bluenette.

"How are you?" Ike asks.

"Terrible," Roy rasps. "And you had a _whole_ lot to do with it."

Ike sets his jaw, eyes locked on something in the distance, maybe a green and luscious plain with treasures flowing over the hills till a jaded sun rises above a steely sky with rays of emeralds and diamonds. Roy does not care personally where his 'friend' has been taken for that split second, but it is enough to piss him off. Pit notices this, hands wringing together in his shirt.

"We're sorry-" he begins.

"I don't want you here," the redhead snaps. "Get out. I've been in here for five days and now you decide to only show up at the very end. What type of message do you think that sends to me?"

"Well, I don't have much of an apology..." Ike retorts back, gaze full of fire and partially murderous enough to make Roy's skin crawl. "Marth, Shulk, Pit, and I were out having a time for ourselves because Shulk had a breakdown while you were gone! And just two days ago, I decided to have a mental breakdown... so sorry we didn't come sooner!"

His voice is sharp, and sometimes Ike likes to entertain his fancy by imagining his voice is one of magnifying proportions, akin to a snare drum's hail against a sheer rock cliff that causes an avalanche, killing thousands. How dare Roy Arcadia think he knows what's best for him, and that he should dictate their schedule. How dare he! Ike Forgenson does not joke around, no sir, and he is prepared to make sure everyone who dares insult him or question one tactic of his life knows that. The commander reels his mind back to the tangible feeling of fear. He's fearing something right now, as it sits on his skin and festers deep. He's worried about Roy's reaction.

Roy can only conceptualize what had to have been running in Ike's head before his last words had been just spoken. Pure, unadulterated fear. Pure terror, and Roy Arcadia, president of his new self-loathing company, loves every single digitalized second, down to the nanoseconds and cyberspace particles. Ike looks taken aback by his own ferocity, and he begins to tremble. However, the trembling stops and he's up and moving about the hospital room.

Pit takes this golden opportunity to stand up and speak. He looks down at his feet. "We're- we're sorry about not coming here earlier. There were some complications... and then just yesterday I- I noticed..." he breaks off his sentence, it drowning in a somewhat half sob.

The redhead's face goes somber, the anger receding back into his veins, and Roy notices the change in demeanor. "What, Pit? What happened at Syrenet while I was gone?"

The technician looks at Roy straight in the face. "Ness, your AI Unit, had been terminated. Officially Corrin's orders."

Roy looks at away from Pit, the words ebbing over, and they sting. They all sting so badly, he doesn't know what to do anymore. None of his friends, not a single one, understands what it means to be horrified by their end staring them down in the face, before mauling you to bits. Link Collins is a festering rat, and when Roy thinks he has given up one enemy for a minute second of suffering, this wall comes crashing down on him. Yet, Roy does not shed a single tear. He wants to, he is willing himself to, but it just isn't happening.

He wishes, though it is a halfway met wish, that he places a child or even better, a Corrin in the mess he had been thrown into, like the feared little animal he was. Have the silverette run around, head cut off with all support vanishing in seconds from her grasp. Link's snarl, the butt of his gun, Midna's flame of her hair... the isolation, his loneliness. Perhaps that'll show her, it'll show that viper, her folk without brains and a sense of self, what true fright is and what shall happen to any instigators. He wishes to make example of them, and make example of them Roy Arcadia shall.

Roy looks back, and similar to Ike, locks his jaw. "What now?"

Pit shrugs. "I've never had to deal with this before. Corrin said that you could create a new AI Unit to go along with your suit, if you want. It's why- it's why I brought the computer."

In the matter of a few, well... good seconds, Roy presses his lips together in a thin line. "No."

"No... what?" Pit furrows his eyebrows together.

"I don't want another AI Unit. I had Ness, Ness was mine, and now I've lost him. I am not going to somehow go through this feeling of losing another." He shall not discuss another word of this unless Pit wants Roy's lunch fork wedged in between an eyeball and the bridge of his nose.

Ike is tired of pacing and decides to go stand over by the right corner of the bed, hands against the wall, palms airy, face unreadable. Fingers splay outwards, and Roy witnesses the struggle on his face on whether or not he should drop some other bombshell in this continuous and effective mental abuse of his associate. He swallows, trying to hide the fear most certainly plastered on his face. That's in his past, and he's moved on from that, he has most certainly moved on from that. He is no longer a man who exploits other emotional weaknesses to make himself feel better.

Pit is restless, however, and wants to continue discussing this matter of not having a Syrenet AI Unit. If there is no AI Unit inside the suit, the suit itself is nothing special and holds no more merit than a simple meshing of armor and twisted steel. Roy Arcadia is a fool, an ideal that Pit wants to capitalize on, but he shall swallow his words and mull on like nothing has happened. There's nothing else to pursue in the tangential thoughts of Ness, reflections, lost memories, failed aspirations and more. He begins tapping a hand against the counter where the computer rests, Roy's own eyes following his every movements. He is covered in a cold sweat, given a sheen of light and slickness coating his arms. Roy shifts focus to Ike, and he notices the bags under his eyes. What has happened to them while he's been gone? Roy wants to feel pity, he wants to care, but there's nothing. All because of the blonde bastard, the knife, and the ego he once had, chipped and shattered like abused china dolls.

He knows where this conversation will be heading, what everyone is going to start talking about, but for the sake of Roy herself, Ike keeps quiet. Keeping quiet is what almost got him killed, but it is a different story and a different memory than what he wants to ponder on at the moment. Roy takes a sigh, and for some reason a pit of want settles in his belly. He desires, truly and faithfully, a chilling glass of the vodka. Not just any vodka, but _the_ vodka that hails itself from a European made bottle of plutonium and sulfuric acid... and Roy's mouth waters at perhaps having the burning taste. All he knows is that Corrin's party is currently going on and Shulk is dancing and drinking up a storm. He imagines the blonde hailing the waiter who is serving down again for another drink, and will take that one as well. Roy can feel the liquid burns in his throat like a long lost kiss, or a hazily written suicide note with blood still splattered over the drooping ink blots. He reaches out to touch Shulk's drink, Shulk's very concept of alcohol hand when he accidentally knocks over an old lunch tray to the floor, a glass sitting on it that had been full of water. Empty, luckily empty. Just like Roy's heart of understanding emotion and the true meaning of Ike and Pit's visit.

It touches the ground with a deafening crash, shattered shards of crystalline glass shooting everywhere. His eyes begin to twitch, andshe's stuck remembering Link Collins, that arms dealer's throat, all mauled up and scissor cut as if the blade had done more than a simple slice. He blinks. Link Collins didn't die by having his throat cut by a knife. He had been shot. By a gun, a bullet to the forehead.

He immediately goes to apologize, as he's always doing stupid shit like this all the time, and it is kind of disappointing to be reminded of it constantly. Roy hates thinking about what he's already broken too many times in his house, his bathroom, and his heart.

Pit is not thinking the same thing, but it is perfectly okay. As Roy's friend leans to pick up the shards of glass, the redhead catches a glimpse at Pit's wrist, hidden away by a long-sleeved button down, which he finds peculiar as it is in the middle of the hospital's horrendous heat. The skin is scarred up, and he nearly loses his breakfast. Scraggly drawn lines, dyed a putrid crimson, are dotting his entire arm. Sinew lines are twisted in and plagued with warped fire, tissue in tiny, precious knots that should scream pain. However, Pit seems to be unfazed by all of this suffering, which is oddly peculiar.

Roy looks down at her hands, partly ashamed, though he has no idea why. He decides to put his blame on Shulk. All of this is Shulk's fault. His suffering... nearly all of the things that have happened to him recently he shall place on the blonde and silently, forever he'll hate him. _It's all his fault! He messed you up, and there needs to be something done for that. Screw him, he's just jealous that I have retained my good looks._ The redhead's skin feels dry, pulled back and scraped off as if he's in agonizing pain, boils and blisters lined up and bursting with feverish fervor. His bones crack and break in the worst points, fingers constantly poised as if they're ready to strike, or that they're curled up around a blade that goes _swish-swish_ into Corrin or Link's skin. The taste of lucid copper fills his mouth, and the presence is warm and necessary and needed. Roy Larson is no coward, but he's a coward at the thoughts of the world he's now been inducted in. It's all Shulk's fault for even thinking of introducing that to him!

The brunette places the tray back on the nightstand and it is a call to Ike that things are over. "Well, we'll see you tomorrow. It is clear you don't want to talk to us about anything and I'm not going to force you. Pit, let's go. Goodnight Roy. I hope your dreams treat you better than we have."

Then Ike Forgenson is gone, off into the bustling hallways of the hospital, lights dancing above him in a vicious blaze. Roy sits in his spot, speechless as his words ebb and flow over her and are registered brain deep. Ike's only reason to escape the hellish room is so he won't talk to him, as Roy has done a thing only he knows how, pissing the guy off. Pit bites down his lip, bids adieu, and races from the room, calling the bluenette's name hysterically. Roy Arcadia wishes there was something in the world known to man as the bottomless glass of vodka.

* * *

Nine seconds.

That's normally how often Midna gives herself before she is standing at the mirror and screaming into it on depressed Friday and Saturday nights. _Why aren't you perfect? Why the hell did you think anyone cared about you? No one will care about you unless you're perfect, you screwed up son of a bitch. You're a single, bankrupt, little asshole that no one likes. Deal. With. It._

Once the tears start spilling for the three thousandth time (it is droll and silly, crying gets Midna nowhere, she knows this, she contemplates this constantly, _yet s_ he still does it insistently), she's down on the tiled bathroom floor sobbing into her arms while she rocks back and forth. Her voice hurts, her arms are sore, her back is dying in agony, yet all he wants to do is cry. She's beyond stupid. _Why aren't you perfect? Why the hell did you think anyone cared about you?_ Single. Bankrupt. Dumb. Dead. Gone. Trash. _Revel in the hatred of your little pitiful life, you dumb idiot._

She's messed up beyond messed up, Midna realizes that one morning. But, the issue didn't come from herself, she feels. She's got a perfect life, though she isn't perfect herself. A nice little flat in a high rise skyscraper building in Washington D.C, three closets full of amazing fashion choices she could droll over and still never find the right outfit... tousled, kissed by fiery hair, a cheeky smile, gorgeous men she could go and screw around silly... yet she loathes and hates herself and her life (there truly is nothing she can do to fix it).

Midna is tired at staring at the clock, at longing to leap off the balcony, so she goes into her happy little place, and she doesn't notice the other person sitting across from her at the table. Her thought process is rather done in a drunk manner, as if she is stumbling everywhere it seems across the room with that wine glass pouring the crimson liquid all over, there is so much red staining the carpet and couch and walls it looks like there was a murder of a million people. She is unfazed by this. All she can recognize is that this wine is some good shit, it is deliciously satisfying, like a euphoria rush that would last longer than three seconds.

Midna Nye hates the weekends. It is a feeling of dread whenever the clocks roll over to 12:01 A.M on Saturday morning while she lays awake staring at the ceiling. Despicable and nasty, it curdles inside her stomach as she vomits over the toilet in the bathroom only four steps from the head of her bed. Weekends means there is no work, no time to spend away clattering at keyboards and getting paid, no one to kill, no one to go and have sex with because it is part of a mission... she is forced to sit at home and be a good little dog. That's what the weekend means for her, because it seems like no one in the FBI ever has anything for her to go over the weekend.

On the surface, the woman is a workaholic. Needs it with her everywhere she goes, something to do so she isn't killing time. Now, Midna does hate clattering away at keyboards, she is no secretary, she is no receptionist or accountant. Simply a woman who requires his time spent having something to occupy it with, not sitting around and waiting for the world to end like some people. For Midna Nye, work is the long lost love to all of his problems. Have a life threatening injury? Work it away, bury your nose into a salary of meager money, shake customer's hands while currently your health saps away behind the counter... a perfect circle.

The warm summer breeze is flowing throughout the front doors of the restaurant, light violin music playing on speakers, though there is a live band out in the corner so unless their creations were being amped out to the masses, their added effect did not work, waste of time. Above her, Midna is looking up, though below the painting which is in turn the ceiling, is a winding banner of fabric on either side of the restaurant. Lights lace the fabric, gold lines of sensibility and gorgeousness with halcyon dots wrapping around them like a tongue dancing for entry in front of a closed mouth. A single chandelier swings above the reflective floor, an mired mix of khaki pants and gowns skirting around the glass ground. Streamers in a plethora of colors flow from the chandelier to the columns adorning the wall, those falling to the floor in a tornado of cloth and bodies.

She can barely make out the other person sitting across from her, and her companion _snaps_ his fingers together to get her attention.

Midna blinks. "What?" she asks angrily.

Her lunch associate, which is actually Snake Karlo, FBI director, looks across the table at her with a sorrowful gaze. He nods to her hand. "Don't you think it is a little... early in the day to be drinking so heavily?"

She looks at her hand and almost lets out a laugh. A glass of Merlot is currently in her hand, the bottle resting by her side. After all, _Midna_ did request that the two meet up at an open-air Olive Garden restaurant where they'd serve wine and spirits super early in the wee hours of the morning. She waves a hand around like it is nothing, dismissive almost. "It's like, eleven..." she smirks. "It's _not_ that early."

Snake does not seem so easily swayed. "Well, after all that you had to drink last night, I'm surprised you're still standing. I'm surprised you've been coherent enough to drive here by yourself let alone. I think... no, I _know_ that I'm taking you home afterwards."

Midna gives him a sly eye. "I have a feeling that this meet up is more than just about my drinking."

The FBI director lets out a long sigh, rubbing his brow. He feels sticky, as if Midna has just dumped the entire flagon of wine all over him by apparent rage. He senses there's something troubling her, but does not press the issue as it wouldn't be too kind. However, there are a few things he wants to get past her and there's a lot to cover. "This isn't going to be what you want to hear, but I'm saying it anyways. I don't know if this party animal and man-hungry lifestyle choice you want to enact is either a cruel joke or plain truth, but it needs to stop. I understand that what happened in Boston was detrimental... but you and I got out of there pretty lucky. If anyone is to be covering up their pain with true happiness, it is Roy."

This brings Midna's world to a cruel standstill, and she has the glass raised to her lips for a split second, frozen as she looks at him. Did he... did he just say what she thought he just said? "Excuse me?" she stutters.

Snake's nose curls up as if he said something foul. "You heard exactly what you thought you did. I said that you need to get your act together and leave this wild lifestyle out of the picture while all this Syrenet business is cleaned up. Last night, you got shit-faced drunk, clearly had some quick round of sex with that one guy in the bathroom, and then vomited everywhere on that table, refusing to eat your food. I understand you may be in some pain, and either people jump the route to sadness or living like kings, but you're taking the latter side of this to the extreme... wouldn't you say?"

"It was a party, Snake. What do you expect me to do? Just sit and sulk in the corner because I'm not feeling well?"

"That is not what I'm saying, but I am definitely not going to sit here and argue with you. That'd be plain silly." He rubs at his brow. Snake wants to take the bottle of Merlot and smash it over his worker's head, but that'd be uncouth protocol, and he's above all that.

"I take it that Corrin isn't very happy with me, then..." Midna realizes the big picture, sobering up somewhat, though the room is still spinning and she's still suffering from the onslaught and offsets of heavy drinking and no eating.

"She isn't. You made a fool of yourself with the... inappropriate behavior and all that. Corrin already got Robin to talk to your..." Snake grasps at the word. "I don't even know what to call the man. Lover? Whore? Paramour? It's hard to understand exactly what you had between him, because you flirted, he flirted back and in the middle of that there was the unbuckling of pants and the sound of sex."

"A one night stand. That is all..." the redhead retorts.

Snake looks at her with regard. "I hope you can handle having to see him again when we go to Chicago. Mac is a part of this little band Corrin has created, and whether we like it or not, she's dragged us into it so the last assignment doesn't repeat itself," Midna begins to protest that the idea is absolutely preposterous and she knows where she can stick this wine bottle if Corrin demands her presence, but Snake puts a hand up. Stern, yet forgiving, which is his reliable nature in the midst of thorned chaos. "I don't understand the true severity of why Syrenet causes this country so much apparent trouble, but disobeying Corrin's orders is something she doesn't take lightly if you still want your job."

Midna twists her napkin into the table. "You're her tiny little puppet?"

He gives her a smile that is effortlessly and utterly terrifying, and shivers rack all up and down Midna's spine. "Corrin may think I have all my playing cards set in her deck, but I'm not so easily swayed. My allegiances, Midna, are for whomever feels their actions are for the betterment of this country. As of late, that has been Corrin, but it can very well change and that woman will watch whatever is tethering us together get cut and she'll be left all alone without the FBI backing her up. I've done it to presidents before, and nothing is stopping me from doing it again."

She wants to move onto another topic, but cannot truly think of anything to say. So she picks something that is plain and simple... it always works, and it'll make her feel ten times better about herself. "I'm sorry..." Midna whispers, but she does it quiet enough that Snake will hear it, but he won't force the woman to repeat it as he does not do things in that sort of cruel fashion.

"I know..." Snake's words sound sad, deeply saddened and there's nothing he can do to ease her pain. "If... if you don't mind me asking- as your boss and hopefully someone you view as your friend... I want to know something. Why did you vomit everywhere on that table, especially after never touching your food? Was your stomach simply not wanting it, or...?"

Midna presses her lips into a thin line and lets out a deep sigh. Her world is about to come crumbling down and she is more than willing and accepting. "I am diagnosed with... with bulimia..." she whispers.

Snake's eyes darken, and worry lines furrow into his brow, along his chin, and any twinkle that may have settled in his eyes vanish like a match going out. He reaches across the table and holds her hand, stiff and firm. "I'm sorry." and he means it.

She knows he is, but there's nothing her boss can do about the problem. It has to be rooted from deep within, and that's something Midna will take years at perfecting. However, she's on a tangent, she's on a role and nothing will stop her. "Years ago, my husband... well, he always wanted me to be as slim as possible. Willingly, as I was some stupid little lovesick girl who didn't know anything about the world, would listen. I'd push meals away and watch my hips cleave together, bones making sounds of crushed gears and machines. Then he'd cook a feast that's only for me. I'd take it all, then I'd force myself to throw it all back up. I had to make myself thin, _thin_ for the man who says he loved me... when everyone around me knew he didn't. Getting into the FBI only made it worse, Snake. I had to stay fit, and I am fit, but I eat everything and then vomit it up later... I look healthy but deep down there is nothing there. It- it only gets worse when I drink and- I just..." Midna's voice breaks off, and she shudders into a few silent, empty sobs.

A hand reaches over and rubs her back as Midna sobs into the tablecloth. Tables around them stop their conversations to glance or even glare as some people have no manners, but it doesn't matter.

All that matters, all that exists to Midna is that she and Snake have had this moment.

Somewhere, somewhere deep, Midna shares a sample of Roy's pain and drowns in it.

* * *

Mired laughs fill the library, and Corrin giggles along with him as she's thinking back to a younger self, a woman with dreams and ambitions and goals that are no longer hers, but that's okay. She looks at her husband with a smile while he presses the beer to his lips and throws his head back. They've been separated from each other for far too long. Corrin's exhausted from a night of staying up, on the phone with Snake, discussing Midna's actions of absolute disrespect, or to Shulk who she is extremely most sorry for and the fact he also vomited, but probably from being upset.

However, now Corrin Etch's thoughts have centered on her husband, and she notices it, an intangible thought that her husband is missing a bit of his old self while he stares at her. It doesn't help her, she realizes, that her husband says whatever is on his mind when he's intoxicated, and it's late the day after the party, and he's had a few beers while they're both cooped up in the library.

She looks at him with a particular peculiarity though she cannot place it on something. Corrin has known Cloud for many, many years and she's gone through the thick and thin with him on many occasions before getting married. But now her eyes can view it full force, the lost puppy dog look in his eyes, how even his hair is combed messily because there's no fire residing in his soul to do anything. Corrin cannot necessarily soul search for him and get a guy or girl who'll compliment what he wants... as it seems she no longer is ample support for her husband... as he's standoffish. She remembers how he had been acting last night, joking with her incessantly. However, Cloud Gladwell catches a word or twenty spoken to Shulk that Corrin barks into the phone and he's soured up.

Corrin thinks, as she doesn't want to get caught staring.

She thinks of what she wants to do to her enemies, and there are numerous ones that she simply doesn't give names to. Link Collins placates itself perfectly in the center. If he hadn't done the things he's done - Corrin stops the train of thought right there. Her mind wanders to how she would've killed him. Snake putting a bullet through his skull is too merciful. The scumbag lies to her face, nearly kills three people essential to her Syrenet plan, and then acts like he can walk it off.

Bull- _fucking_ -shit.

The silverette man snarls her imaginary welcome, before lifting the gun up and firing at Link straight in the chest. He falls down, his voice going out in a sudden croak, and Corrin is now on top of him, unsheathing her knife at her pant leg. _Up. Down. Up. Down._ Link's cries become strangled and estranged as blood begins to spurt everywhere over the tile and everywhere else there is a tear. Corrin drives the knife in the gunshot wound, ignoring the pained cries of her old associate before Link cuts himself off, his eyes glaze over, and Corrin is still slamming the blade down into the man's body.

She likes this ending. Knife and gun, and a death that is painful.

Corrin Etch, president of the United States, and leader of Syrenet, dreams of falling. She thinks she's falling.

Her eyes snap open and realize that she's actually not dreaming of falling.

She literally is falling to the ground, and she's screaming. She's screaming bloody murder.

Everything seems to happen so fast, in life. That much is true. Corrin misses the old days, yet she remembers a time when her mother died. Robin decides to go with her, as this is early on in their friendship, and it is a day she wants out of her head. She passes a glance over at Cloud, and smiles, because she knows he wasn't there to see her at her true self. A desperate, sleaze bag woman who only wants what she can get in reasonable measure.

There is a somber feeling that is covering the cemetery about two miles away from the heart of New York City. A slight mist settles above the tree lines, it is dark and damp and smells of river sewage soak into the ground and the tombstones. Two women stand underneath an umbrella as it is starting to pour, which is silly as they are also standing underneath a birch tree with branches and leaves that spawn quite the natural covering.

The tension feels high between them, and perhaps this is for a good reason as death is never seen to unite people on any good front. Corrin rubs her shoulder innocuously, just a week ago, not even that, there was a time when two great people were together and loved each other. Her mother, her father, both are old in age. She is jealous, she isn't earning anything in her inheritance. Jealousy is a plague, a crippling disease that kills and kills and kills and kills till there's nothing left but rubble that is smoking. Smoke and ash from collapsed homes that burn down in the winter, which seems to be counter intuitive. The silverette scoffs to herself, leaning against the tree, feeling the _drip drip_ of the rain from above.

 _(This is all an old thought, Corrin wishes, that this never happened in her past life)_

Silence washes over them again, a subdued silence that is slowly dragging on until both women decide this is beyond awkward. Corrin digs into her coat pocket and pulls out a carton of cigarettes. A pallid box of tobacco and lung cancer created for those who feel like there's more comfort in a puff than a hug. She, in her life, has never smoked up until a week ago. Corrin fishes for one of the sticks of death and searches in the other pocket for a lighter. Under the rain, under that birch tree, she lights the cigarette as a wisp of fire takes to the sky and illuminates her face in a ghastly glow.

 _She takes a puff, inhales, exhales, and out comes the white smoke in a wisp, a curling, grotesquely bent finger as a reminder of what she's putting in her mouth. "Damn, that feels good."_

 _"You smoke?" Robin asks._ Oh, weren't those the days? The days when even her best friend and most trustworthy person she knows isn't constantly throwing her under the bus with short handed comments or making executive orders against the grain and knowledge.

 _"No, I don't." Corrin responds, and that's the rest of this conversation_. She doesn't smoke. Corrin Etch, the beauty from Harvard Law, who now is positioned as Head Manager of the entire damn nation, has to lie in keeping everything in check so she doesn't lose herself. Corrin scratches the back of her neck.

Her mind then floats to another scenario.

One of empty, restless nights when she had a child and her and Cloud had just been married.

She is awoken early in the night, she recalls. Corrin sighs, looking over at the bedspread. She blinks hard, once or twice, Corrin loses count of the number of times she does the bodily action, it is automatic, necessary. _Blink_. Why isn't she here? _Blink_. _Blink. Blink. Blink_. Shit. The silverette groans, together in this memory and in real life, realizing rather quickly the same fate occurring inside her brain is targeting the husband she so desperately loves. Stupid insomnia. Stupid inner demons. Instead of a soundlessly sleeping blonde haired man of god that is Cloud Gladwell, there is a blank space vacated by her legs, no warm breath passing over her shoulder. Perhaps out on the terrace again, more than likely. That's where Cloud goes when he tries shutting down his inner suffering.

Back in the library, Corrin hopes to forget. Cloud is hiding something up his sleeve.

She recalls and she hates it. Their first fight as a married couple. Bottles are thrown, tables are overturned, and neither can escape either's wrath. It is bloody, it is painful, it is excruciating, it is awkward, it is torment, it is beautiful, it is _euphoric,_ it is entirely _Corrin Etch's_ very essence. She clutches a ring on her finger, and the memory dissipates like water hitting a rock.

Her hands circle the ring slowly, Corrin's pinkie smoothly rubbing over the gemstone. Cloud had asked what her favorite color was on a dinner date so many years ago it seemed like it belonged in the Roman numeral system. She responded quietly with blue, radiating sapphire and aquamarine waves that resembled the sky so beautifully and sharply. So what he did, as the gentleman Cloud used to once be, he bought her a ring. With a gemstone of that exact color. She loved him for it, more than most people would have.

Corrin laughs to herself now, in that library.

She remembers when Cloud, in those days off, would play the first person shooters that took an entire generation by storm.

The white haired girl never watches the killing. She lets the sounds fill in the missing pieces. They are to fulfilling.

Their second argument, Corrin recalls, is evil and much more vile than the first.

The couple is warring over taxes and issues such as not having enough to pay for the funeral procession of someone's dead child, theirs or otherwise no one can tell. Corrin is bitter and rude when she says that she hopes everyone she's ever cared about dies in some horrible plane crash... as if they're heading to their own funerals because someone set them up. An enemy of the court, an enemy of the country.

Corrin's response makes her own heart solidify. _"In case we die, I sit there and cannot believe you're the man I fell in love with. That you're the person I could be dying alongside with. I can never be fully happy with who we are, but as long as I don't lose myself tonight, or any other night, I'm okay with who I lose in the process."_

The couple leaves many undesired words between them as they walk back to their hotel.

Behind them, a blood sun sinks beneath the sky.

She blanches at this memory.

One particular night, she wakes up screaming. Eyes are closed, but there is full-fledged terror in her face. _"No! Don't shoot my little boy! Please, God no!"_ A piercing gunshot breaks the mold of her screeching, where she falls back to the covers of the new bed and cries her eyes out. Cloud still hasn't returned to bed; he is not at her side the moment he hears his wife cry out bloody murder. What in God's name... where had he gone? This is argument number three.

It is as if he doesn't care to even check on her anymore. The white haired girl snorts. Such was the issue at the moment. She sits up, throwing off the blankets that adorn her body. A hand is thrown through tousled hair, all Corrin can do is check the surroundings, seeing them empty and vacant. Looks as if a search party needed to be organized. A groan shifts her out of bed, where feet land lightly from hours in ballet on carpeted floor, where scuffs of rough cotton prick her toes, droplets of ruby blood trailing her in a diverted wake.

Corrin peers into the study. A new mansion, a new life, a new way to rebuild the old and shattered memories of before. Closed window. Curtains stilled. Candle is extinguished. No blonde haired male sleeping on the linoleum floor. What in the hell? Had Cloud just come in her life to vanish off the face of the Earth? She stomps her foot childishly. Being stumped never was her favorite activity, swindling took that by the horns. It meant the excursion had to be expanded beyond the comforting of their room. To search the expanse of the darkness out in the hallway, down the stairs, perhaps to the center piece of her home and into town, of some hick town she has never bothered learning the name of because it is so insignificant. She hates having to be the bigger person.

Navy coats line the wall, again reminiscent of her favorite color. Corrin picks the one closest to the mirror, where she gets a good gaze at herself. Curved figure, plumb breasts, shining eyes, this time a dark heather blue from contacts. She had a man infatuated with her. What more could be asked for? Nothing.

Argument number four feels like it is centuries ago, but Corrin remembers that it isn't long before she had called Shulk into her office to discuss the breaking of glass ceilings.

 _"Doing what?"_

 _"What do you think? Praying, stupid." Cloud snorts._

She lets the insult slide off of her, in the argument and real life. Corrin had heard far worse when working with clients, those who'd shout and scream all their bitterness in plagued warped fire, where each lash hurt more than the last. She's tired of all of the predicaments, all the lies, all the hazy moments that someone would glue together to form their marriage, to form that so broken relationship even safety glue won't fix it perfectly.

 _"Cloud-"_ she bites her tongue, almost saying his name. Not here, at least. _"I- I uh, had a nightmare. Of the kids when we were little. How they screamed and kicked us that morning, when we both returned, they had been held at gunpoint..."_ Her voice dies, and Corrin lets the tears fall. She remembers that the tears fell on Robin's shoulder of all people.

 _"You should sit."_ Cloud offers gently.

She looks up, staring at the amaranthine stained glass, but Cloud decides, he _chooses_ , to not look at her. He'll collapse too. It's why he came, why he went to the chapel in the first place. For mending, for fixation. She'd have him fall apart too.

 _"I don't want to sit," his wife rasps. "In fact, I want you out of here and in bed with me, like it is supposed to be!"_

 _"Being impatient will bring you nothing but disappointment." Cloud snarls._

 _"That's all you are to me these days." Corrin hisses._

The last argument, the one she's had replay over in her head, wasn't even real. But a dream. A dream that involves way too much suffering. It had played something like this. Corrin is injured, and her husband does absolutely nothing to help ease her pain.

She remembers. She feels. _She lives it. She is living it. She has endured it every day._

He stands over her in the pallid hospital room, smells of IV stalks and latex gloves invading his nostrils to a stench of incomparable heights. A low, dull, innocuous heartbeat dolls and dolls over and over again in his chest, while he pains at the soft sleeping of his wife in the bed. Thin sheets cling to her skin, drips of crimson dried blood stuck to her nose. She is so peaceful, pallid hair combed behind the ears, eyes shut gently while the chest rises and sinks with easy breaths.

Time ticks by slowly. Five minutes' meld into an hour, an hour into four, four hours into a day. A day into three days. On the third day, where he is ready to leave, go and find that damn ring he left in that New York sewer, she opens her eyes. Radiant diamond orbs stare back at the hollow ghost of the husband she used to love. Where once she denied the truth, she sits up weakly, anesthesia helping immensely. Corrin groans, breaking him out of his glazed state.

Instead of crying, she replays her daughter's pained cries over and over again in her head. Broken record player. Stop. Repeat. Start. Stop. Repeat. Gun shot. Wail. Repeat. Stop. Start. Gun shot. Wail. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. _Repeat. Repea-_

Corrin sobs. Hard. She brings the sheets up to her face and screams into them. Pain flashes up in her leg and she yells in hell's fury at the damned walls, at her damned husband who is crying too. _"I'm sorry!" Cloud argues back._ They do not hear each other, the hurting rising up to unbelievable levels. Where were the staff? Why had no one run into their aid? Were they even in a hospital, or some psychiatric ward for the mentally insane?

They cry. All they can do is cry. He has moved over to her side, clutching a hand while sobbing into her neck. She murmurs evil thoughts, rubbing the base of his neck.

While they cry, Corrin imagines the blue bone beach expanse of a sky overlooking an ocean. She can hear the roll of the waves, the crashing of the water.

The president is remorseful, but the feeling still isn't as strong as she'd like it. She's had a dream, a long one she's wanted fulfilled and she knows it'll never happen.

They've never been here before. She's always refused to come here; he's always accepted her wishes. A single rose is gripped harshly in her hand, smooth hands and fingers crushing a fragile stem. The wife leans down by the gray tombstone overlooking the ocean, her dream, her imagination led them here... to their children's graves. The names are etched out. They had personally requested it at the funerals. Corrin places the rose down. She turns away immediately, biting back tears.

Her memories all break, and Corrin blinks. She's lost a lot of time. She's spent too many hours trying to help her husband.

She goes to leave, all wholesome, wholly real, when Cloud looks up at her, eyes bloodshot.

Corrin stills, just waiting. _Say it. Just say it._

"Honey, we need to talk. I think Syrenet is something you should end... it is..." Cloud swallows heavily. "It is killing you and changing you. I just want my wife back, the same sweet wife that you once were when we first met. None of this presidential shit even matters when you think about the big picture!"

Given all her credit, given everything the two have been through together...

Corrin Etch says nothing as she leaves the room.

* * *

 **Well... there we have it ladies and gentlemen! Chapter #15: Stone Sacrilege, of Syrenet is complete! That drags out a few questions, actually. Sacrilege is the breaking or desecration of a holy monument. What, and perhaps this could be plural when thinking about it, what has been broken and desecrated that is holy here? I swear I wanted to make this chapter happy, but somewhere I said that Syrenet isn't a happy story. I understand that the meld between Corrin's real state and dreams and memories are blurred and probably very hard to distinguish, but I did that on purpose. Look there though, we now know a whole lot about a few characters and their past! Roy no longer wants a new AI Unit, and he's pissed at literally everyone. Are his feelings justified, you say? And it looks like Midna suffers from something I call depression, and clearly now her disorder which I'm surprised no one pinpointed. Corrin is just a messed up Corrin, but I've got nothing else to say for that, haha. Thanks for reading! I'd love a review, especially as we now move into the latter half of the arc and things are about to amp up a bit. I hope to have Chapter #16: Etch and Gladwell Schism out by next week sometime. Happy Memorial Day! Thanks for being amazing readers! Love you all! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	16. Chapter 16: Etch and Gladwell Schism

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, #16: Etch and Gladwell Schism. Clearly, with those two last names we know who we're talking about. Right? At least... I think so. Maybe. Maybe not. Anywho, I've had a few good relaxing days and have been super stoked thinking of all the writing adventures to come and all that excited jazz, but I digress. Last chapter was another super long one, but I think this will be at a much shorter medium of 4k-6k again, as it is taking awhile for me to write out these chapters because of some weird position things, but even so I digress further. The arc is nearing it's end, and boy it has been a wild ride so far. I have a lot of plans this summer with my stories, and the next piece of mine in the Smash fandom that'll hit computers and phone screens near you is a sequel to perhaps what is my greatest piece of writing, Native, which very well may be unseated by this story, Syrenet itself. The sequel is called My Oh My, as it is based off of One Republic's album of the same secular (Oh My My), and since Native is named after One Republic's album Native, and being a contest winner, I think it deserves something that's a mix between prequel/sequel. Review replies!**

 **SeththeGreat- Yeah... sorry about the naming error. I'm writing a Hunger Games story with OC's and one of the characters is named March Larson, must be where the Larson came from and I've gotten character last names mixed up and what not. Ah, I will make sure to go back and comb through stuff, I had been rushing to get the chapter out. I am just dropping AI Unit hints out here, aren't I? Question remains though is this... what would be the thing to set the AI Units off? Because, clearly, with Lucas as he's the only AI Unit left as a main character, what would be something that would cause him to act out of programming? AND, the religious themes in the title is totally coincidental. The Sacrilege part was just there, and Schism sounded a lot better than the other synonyms for a fight between two orderlies.**

 **CrashGuy01- Glad to hear that the arc is enjoyable! There are far more intense moments and events on the way, so buckle yourself in my friend. Get all nice and comfy! I like having dialogue minimal chapters sometimes as it really gets you inside the heads of everyone's thoughts and feelings rather than what they say. However, I tend then to be on the flipside and do chapters that are dialogue heavy, such as this one as there's a lot to unearth between the spoken word. Ah, you think there's a crazy psycho in our midst? Personally I feel that Corrin is already too far gone, and Roy doesn't seem like the type of character to lose his mind like that. You'll find who I'm thinking of sooner than you expect, especially with this chapter. Enjoy!**

 **I hope you all enjoy Chapter #16: Etch and Gladwell Schism.**

* * *

The bar is crowded, and Roy is wondering how in the hell he has ended up here. The redhead looks around at the plastered ceilings and decides that it is best to keep his mouth shut and focus on what is ahead of him. In retrospect, there isn't much he wishes to think about or say, especially given his company. The stitching along his side and the cloth wrapped heavily around his leg where the stab wound lays constricts his movement, Roy kicking out and shuffling about rather stiffly than the flowing freeness of water.

His companion downs the second shot glass sitting in front of him, and Roy wrinkles his nose in disgust. He isn't a proponent of alcohol, but it shouldn't bother him more than it should. Shulk wipes at his mouth, and nods at Roy. Roy Arcadia is still stuck thinking about what must've gone wrong in the last few hours. Shulk picks him up from the hospital, and the man is shaky yet sturdy, but has a scowl plastered on his face still from Ike and Pit's distanced meeting from yesterday. The blonde quips that the other fellow _must_ be starving and he's to provide a supplement. So, somehow breakfast gets warped around in Shulk's brain to a bar, and that is where the two have ended up, crammed into a tight booth in the back of a dimly lit corner with a candle in between them though it is bright and broad daylight outside, so much heavy and sheen light streaming through the windows.

Shulk orders another three shots of gin and tonic, with a rather heavy splash of ginger ale to help down the acidic and bitter taste. Roy clenches his hand into a fist on the table several times as the blonde eagerly accepts his new round of drinks. He wipes a few stray strands of hair out of his face, and the redhead notices from his perched spot that Shulk looks a little bit paler than usual, as if he's seen a ghost.

A thick cloud of tension sits on both of their shoulders; the car ride over to the bar was stuffy and little to no idle chitchat passed between them, Roy being too angry to speak at supposedly who he thought of as his best friend. Ike and Pit he saw as another story, he spoke perhaps three words to them. Shulk? He's an entirely different matter altogether. He is supposed to be under Shulk Roberts's liege, the Alpha commander with his sidekick and it seems like the alpha male, the wolf leader, could hardly care about his pup. This is all too disconcerting for Roy, as a fire stirs beneath his veins. However, he knows to not bite the hand that feeds him, for surely if he manages to piss off a rather ticking time bomb that is his commander, Shulk is the type of man to stick the affronted party with the check.

It is a feasible sixty-three percent plausible. Exactly sixty-three percent.

Roy sits up and clears his throat, arm still stretched out, which looks rather odd. Shulk hasn't left eye contact with the redhead for the past two minutes, and decides to end the silence.

"I hear that you've become depressed," Shulk says, splaying his hands outwards on the table. "Is that so?"

"And how would you know that? Last I checked, you never came to see me," Roy locks his jaw, gaze murderous. "In fact, _none_ of you came to see me."

The commander narrows his eyes at Roy, shrugging complacently. His loss, he supposes. "Someone who already went and saw you beforehand."

"Midna."

"Correct."

"And why would Midna tell you that I was depressed? I'm more enraged at the world than wanting to drown myself."

"Her and I talked at the party that Corrin hosted. That _was_ two days ago, after all." Shulk gives another hapless shrug. He doesn't know what Roy wants him to do. Get on his knees and beg for a forgiveness that Roy maybe or maybe doesn't deserve? The blonde is known to not give out freebies to pathetic little runts who act as if they are entitled to something in the world without earning it first. He knows where the conversation is headed, but for the sake of the walls and other patrons, he'll let the bitter conversing steady its course. "We had a good time. You would've enjoyed the party."

"I wasn't able to join you. Sorry," Roy makes a face.

"Bad joke," Shulk raises a hand off the table, making an ' _at ease_ ' gesture. "Since then, nothing interesting has happened."

"Then what have you done all the other days where you were unable to see me?" Roy's tone is accusatory, directed, and Shulk wants to slap the vicious stare right off the redhead's face for having the gall to act as if he deserves some sort of apologetic and remorseful answer.

" _No one apologizes to me for all the hardships I've endured. All the injuries I have had inflicted, the emotional and physical scares from my wife's death... yet everyone mulls over the fact I'm more broken than anyone chooses to believe..."_ Shulk growls to himself, and then aloud, "Well, the day you were admitted into the hospital, the guys and I were out having a vacation for ourselves because I had a mental breakdown in which I wounded one of our own," he snaps. "The very day I got back was the night of the party. I was bedridden yesterday."

Roy picks his eyebrows up. "Is that why you look paler than usual?"

"Part of it," Shulk agrees, reaching for another shot glass. Roy stirs his iced tea and takes a long, satisfying sip. It is so much better than the placid and boring concoctions the doctors forced down his throat to help him sleep, or sugarless orange Jell-O that is supposed to replace specific nutrients needed in a meal plan as convoluted as a Syrenet employee's. "But, me being sick is hardly your concern. The reason _why_ I got sick, however, is."

"And what would the reason be?"

Shulk purses his lips, and if somehow possible, more color vanishes from his face leaving the blonde as white as a sheet, with a face almost more see-through than Lucas's holographic portrait. "Our president, the she-witch that she is, thinks that it is more than satisfactory to try and create another Syrenet branch out in Northern Midwest. Granted, it's Illinois, but I still think Corrin is making a huge mistake."

"Illinois?" Roy raises an eyebrow. "What city would we possibly be entering for a new branch?"

"Chicago," Shulk answers. "The mission will be in about four days or so, and by that point, you'll be recovered enough that you're going with us. And, because of Oklahoma City's amazing failures that Corrin loves reminding everyone about, she is making this project be a merged one between us and the FBI. It looks like Snake and Midna will join our hearty crew. Rumor has it Marth is forced to lead the mission, but truth be told, I don't think our commander in chief has told him. Poor man, Marth has gone through so much and it seems like Corrin is only hell bent on breaking him for all his service. But, again, it is a rumor, so who knows how accurate it is..."

At the mentioning of the two people in the FBI, Roy's facial expression sours into one of impeccable depths, with a brow so furrowed one could plant seeds in them. Shulk rolls his eyes at the reaction, downing the last of his shots left. It seems like he'll become a true alcoholic by the time he's old, withered and gray. That is, speaking if he makes it. "She just wanted to dig the knife in deeper, didn't she?" Roy hisses.

"Pardon?"

"Midna and Snake..." the redhead reiterates. "Corrin knows full and well that the two of them are partly behind why the situation in Boston went sour... and now I'm going to be healthy and joining them once more on a Syrenet mission? It's bullshit."

The blonde sighs, running a hand through his hair. "I think you need to cut this whiny crap out, Roy. And don't give me any sort of pissed off look, you know you're in the wrong on this. Without Snake and Midna, you'll be dead six feet underneath, with a tombstone saying he died in a moment of most panic. They saved your life whether you'd like to admit it or not. Midna couldn't very well do anything to save you before Snake arrived because she'd get her cover blown. You can't be that selfish where one person's life, especially in this government and fighting for the same cause, matters less than your own..." Shulk's stare is pointed, Roy shuffling in his seat awkwardly. The shadow of the candle wick flickers and passes over Shulk's face, igniting his diamond eyes up and there's a flash of an emotion the redhead cannot read. "Snake shot Link in the head for you. I get that you're also upset he never appeared in the hospital room, because he's director of the FBI. You can bet that his time is spent up. You're alive and well... sometimes the center of the universe will not be you."

Roy sits there, mouth agape and he's speechless. "I- I..." he stutters, but the blonde simply holds up a hand, waggling a finger back and forth.

"I wouldn't try, okay? Just... leave it be. No one is going to hear your complaining, lest do anything about it. You mouth off to Corrin of all people about any of this and she'll have you fired or buried in a ditch with your throat cut before you finish your sentence..." Shulk reprimands, and then he slowly begins to trail off, eyes caught by something off in the distance.

His friend notices, sitting up. "What is it?"

Everything hits Shulk in the face, all at once it is a wave of something he wishes to call nostalgia, but rather it is painful and scorching, driving over his skin like lesions of boils that burst and scald his skin. A wave of familiar, too familiar, blonde hair passes over a woman's shoulder as she steps out of the bar. The hook of her nose is too similar to that of Fiora's, and the commander of Alpha Squad begins to shake feverishly, shaking strongly enough that he shakes the entire table. Roy goes white, and he's looking around as if there could be something to stop him.

Shulk watches the woman exit the bar and he gets up, bolting. Wind and words rush by his ears as he chases after the lady, caught in the throng of downtown Washington D.C traffic during the midday, and he's paralyzed in the middle of the street when the woman turns behind him. Pearls and stars flash by in his vision, downing Shulk to one knee. The sky is too bright, and the lines all blur and obscure together. A peal of laughter breaks the silence, it breaks the silence like a cresting wave till every resonate note of the joyous noise rivets around the blonde's skull like a haywire bullet. Ricocheted bits of bone matter bounce and fly around, dancing in the breeze while the cacophony of chuckles drowns out all other sound.

The murmur of a heartbeat begins to take place of the other noises, ravaging and deadly. Shulk's emotions gravitate towards something feasible as the woman begins looking around, as if she's searching for something but cannot find what she's seeking. He tries calling out, but the cries choke in his throat, until he's spitting up sulfuric acid and biting down on harsh words that aren't helpful in the slightest. His ears are roaring with blood flow, and the dizziness will not cease until Shulk's skull is split open on the rock, festering around like ants that burrow into his nerves and wreck his endocrine system. The sky changes colors rapidly: a ferocious cardinal, a whimsical amaranthine, a decadent sapphire, a blinding halcyon, a turgid mahogany, a zealous sunburst orange, a flowing shade of carnation pink... the woman begins to blur together as if she's melting away into static, like a television screen's signal. He reaches out, and it's a fool's thought for someone to believe the commander could grasp onto the woman from yards away amidst a throng of people going about their daily levels. He's upset, Shulk is enraged momentarily, that no one is noticing him, no one is giving a single care in the world about the man falling apart in the middle of the street. What did he do to deserve this? A stupid little AI disk is nothing compared to the sins of his leaders.

Shulk whimpers, the pain is too great, the suffering has a mind of its own and it shall not stop until the blonde has reconciled with the past... he can never find the euphoria he wishes to receive if he lives in the ways of an old criminal... for what? For a woman's recognition? Certainly Shulk Roberts has far more better standards than that, yet he cannot seem to find any.

Blonde hair covers him akin to a field of grain, crumbly and tall where the woman's gaze pierces through him. Screams begin to disrupt the laughter and it's a precarious moment, a precious second in time that shatters into a million pieces. There's blood running down the streets now, running down Shulk's hands as he's twisting, twisting someone's neck, shooting someone's brains out just to reach this mysterious woman who for some reason is nothing yet everything all at once. He cries out, he cries out hoping, _pleading_ that someone is to hear him, but he's met with silence.

Someone is screaming his name, and it takes two slaps to his face to break Shulk out of the stupor he's in.

He blinks heavily, and the woman is gone. Fiora has disappeared.

Roy's worried face comes back into focus, eyebrows furrowed together, eyes full of sympathy and confusion. "Shulk?" he asks. "Shulk, can you hear me?"

The blonde shakes his head, looking around dazedly. The world is a burst of neon colors and drunken lust, and it is killing him slowly. "Huh?"

"Are you alright? What did you see?"

The word sits on the man's tongue like clouded poison, diluted but strong enough to make him feel.

"Nothing..." he says. "Nothing. I thought... I thought I saw someone I knew..."

He holds himself tight, and suddenly, as if all the blood has left his body, Shulk collapses to the sidewalk with a mixing of a sigh and a gasp. His head hits stone and then darkness.

* * *

Marth likes when the compound is quiet. Granted, he knows that there are indeed people working above him and below him currently, but for the time being, Syrenet Headquarters, in his own personal space that is nothing larger than a seven by seven with the man curled up in between two beds, is peaceful. No noise disturbs him from the upper or lower floors, and he can get lost in the fantasy tales of knights and fair maidens all he likes.

The bluenette takes another satisfying bite of his apple, going down to the very core of it and throwing it away expertly without looking up from the page. This is the fifth book he's read in the past two days, given he has had nothing to do over the last week ever since he got back from the cabin. Marth looks at his left arm, scowling, as the body part had come into his line of vision from turning a page back as he missed apparently what seems like an important name. The bruise sits nicely on his forearm, a ringlet circle of splotchy blues and purples that are nothing but mere reminders of Marth's problems.

A particular nightmare, one of four rather, had Marth up and panicking, caught in his own thoughts and demons of the mind where he is unable to open his eyes. He suffers a nasty tumble down a flight of stairs where he lands on his arm in a sort of wrong way, but nothing's broken. The bruise settles a few hours later, and Marth winces every time he moves the left side of his body. His head has stopped hurting since breakfast, and since it's nearing about noon, the bluenette feels like it is a great time to settle himself down in one of his favorite crooks in the entire building and read.

That is... until someone he shall not name moves into the picture, panting heavy and coated with a new glossy sheen of sweat from head-to-toe after a workout and sparring session. Ike unlatches the headband from around his head, opening the refrigerator on the other side of the room, and takes out a water bottle. He starts to whistle Yankee Doodle, going to take a sip until he sees Marth stuck between two of the beds up against the wall. Doing what he always does. Reading. Marth hasn't taken a shower, and his hair is all messy, bags underneath his eyes from a lack of sleep due to the nightmares and pain.

"You look like a homeless person," Ike jests, being half mean and half joking, taking another sip of his water.

"Nice one," Marth comments.

"Or someone who's tried dressing well and failed." It is all just harmless banter between the two of them.

"And you're a disgusting and smelly ogre who thinks he's funny..." Marth shoots back, flipping the page, and keeping his eyes glued to the book. He's having a serious case of deja vu. He just hopes that when this conversation is over, the two men don't find a Syrenet employee having a panic attack, and the other covered in blood.

"Wow," the taller man places a hand against his chest. "That may be the rudest thing you've ever said to me."

"I've said worse."

"Is that so?"

"Are we just going to do the same old-same old again?" Marth hesitates, about to close his book so he can glare at his best friend in the eye, but chooses not to, continuing to read and not keep eye contact. "I'm tired of arguing with you about the necessity of literature. How did the sparing go?"

"It went well..." Ike comments, running a hand through his slick hair. "Pit didn't flinch this time when I went for an underside jab. He blocked it! I think the nerd is starting to learn how to fight..."

Marth cracks a smile, turning the next page. He starts chewing on his lower lip, and the lucid taste of bitter copper fills his mouth like a basin, flushing a glistening ruby coat across the piano set of teeth. The nightmare rests in the back of his mind like a constant reminder that his friends are only temporary measure to help dull the pain of fighting through another day. He looks over at Ike, the man's breathing still quite rapid and the chest rising and falling. His best friend seems to be upset, however, as the way Ike has his brow furrowed together, hands closing and opening up to form fists. "What's wrong?"

"Huh?" Ike blinks, gaze flashing over to Marth.

"You seem upset."

"Oh... it's nothing," the commander waves off his best friend, finishing the last of the water bottle. "I'm just thinking about Roy."

"Oh?" Marth raises an eyebrow. "In what way? Like, just he's passing your thoughts or..."

"You know what I mean!" Ike snaps, and his face goes beet red, flustering and opening the fridge this time for a beer can. Marth rolls his eyes. Too many people drink in his team. Shulk rather feels like an alcoholic in a diaper for how much intoxicating liquid he consumes, and Ike can replace Marth with a beer can in seconds if the other commander starts to annoy him ever so slightly. Corrin's drinking problem is an entirely different matter altogether, but the bluenette chooses not to bother himself with those types of problems.

He decides that if he's going to try and have a civil conversation, being concerned about the problems of Dark Ages Europe will not alleviate tensions. "What, then?"

Ike's jaw locks, set onto something, something upsetting. "Pit and I visited Roy yesterday in the hospital. He got out early this morning, so Shulk went to go pick him up. Anyways... the redhead thinks he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. He's all pissed off that none of us have come to see him and we should all feel like we've wronged him. I snapped a little out of character and said that there are other people in Syrenet, who I have known far longer than him, to care about as well..." he visibly calms down. "Such as you."

"I'm hardly any of your concern..." Marth dismisses the courtesy with a wipe of his hand. It isn't anything he feels Ike should be worried about, for the man cares too much about enough as it is. The guy having a big heart is partially an understatement. "And... knowing you in an argument when someone ticks you off, you left?"

"I did. I stormed out and didn't apologize. _There's_ nothing to apologize for," Ike growls. "If he wants to go around, acting all bruised purely because we haven't sent him sympathy cards, fine by me. He should be thankful he's alive, but instead he's going to make his life a living hell here if he pisses us all off with his fangled bullshit!"

Marth raises his eyebrows in shock. He's never heard Ike say such a coarse word, and even though calling something 'bullshit' is not as vocational as using one of Corrin's favorite four letter word, f word expletives, the gentle giant that can crush someone's head who is Ike Forgenson swearing... it causes alarms to go off in his head. "That may also be the worst single word you've ever said. It also sounds like you've been beating a dead horse about the whole thing. Let Roy feel the way he does and then it'll blow over."

Ike narrows his eyes at Marth, not understanding the metaphor. "Beating a dead horse?"

His best friend's look is even more shocking than the first one, Marth's eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. "It means to talk about something and over doing it, like beating a dead horse. It's dead, and beating it won't do anything else to it because it is _already_ dead. You've never heard anyone say that before?"

"Not everyone I hang out with is as well-read as you."

The commander of Beta Squad shrugs his shoulders, frowning. He picks his book back up, and begins to read again. Ike narrows his eyes at his best friend, noticing the bruise on Marth's left arm. He shudders somewhat, the bluenette's cries of terror from last night still echoing inside his head. "How'd you get the bruise?"

"What bruise?" Marth freezes up, eyes dancing around the room to anywhere else that wasn't the other guy in the room.

"The one on your arm."

"I hit a pole. It's not a problem." the bluenette goes back to reading.

Ike places the beer can down on the counter and goes over to the beds, standing in front of them, crouching down so he's bouncing on the balls of his feet. Marth looks up, and a tension settles on his shoulders. He's a cornered animal, a trapped animal, because by the time he can try and vault over the beds, Ike will have him in an instant to sit himself down in the very same spot till they've discussed. "I heard a lot of noise last night. Some of it was you yelling things I didn't understand, and then followed by the sound of someone falling down a set of stairs."

"It could've been anyone else who fell..." Marth sniffs at the air disdainfully, going back to his book. Ike snatches the book from Marth's grasp. "Hey! Give it back, asshole!" the guy, who had just been reading, cries, trying to take it back, hands grabbing nothing but air.

"I'll give it back after you tell me what happened last night. Another nightmare?"

"There are far better ways to talk about this!" the commander grits his teeth.

Ike looks around the room. "I don't see a certified specialist or a doctor around here. Yeah, I may be acting like a jerk right now, but it's because you got hurt last night and won't tell me what's up. Not everything I do is against your self interest, after all you're my best friend and best friends stick out for one another. You sleep walked while having a nightmare, fell down a flight of stairs, and bruised your arm. Why didn't you wake me after you fell?"

Marth looks down at his hands, lips trembling. "I didn't want you to worry..."

"Worry?" Ike's shout is a tad bit uncalled for given Marth's flinch, and he softens his tone. "You got injured and you don't want me to worry? If that's the case, then you really don't know me all that well."

The bluenette rubs his shoulder innocuously. "I don't want to talk about it."

Ike's face darkens, and his lips crease together to form a grim line. He stands back up, tossing the book back into Marth's lap. "Fine. If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to. Why haven't you gone to see a psychiatrist about this stuff? I know we've discussed your nightmares here and back for quite some time, but every time we near that subject you close off. You're only going to hurt yourself worse because of doing that. I-"

"Just go. Please," Marth starts shaking uncontrollably, clenching and unclenching his fists, swallowing heavily.

His best friend bites on the inside of his cheek, sighing. "As you say, commander."

Ike solemnly strolls off, and Marth watches him go, unrepentant, and he wants to cry.

Marth wills himself to cry, yet nothing comes out.

* * *

The president dislikes people crossing her in ways that aren't meant to be crossed. Betrayals she never saw coming, backstabbing incidents she never expected. Corrin awakes with a start, a feverish launch as she leaps out of bed, looking at the clock. The digital world tells her that it is exactly noon, and by god she's slept in far too long than she wanted. Though the world never stops to have a vacation, Corrin Etch likes taking the time to let herself relax. Her husband's words, her flesh and blood, still echo and reverberate around her skull, and they burn. _Syrenet is a bad influence on you._

She strolls into the living room, and her heart wants to crumple in on itself at the look of how things were arranged, everything all picture perfect and picturesque where a realtor can sign their signature in glossy lipstick. Robin is awake, strolling about and telling her secret service agents instructions, but Corrin cannot hear them. Mac stands obediently, patiently, and quietly over in the corner, dressed finely in a tuxedo, dark sunglasses covering his generally sunny eyes, arms crossed together. Corrin can tell that his face brightens immensely by the way he begins to walk over to her, but she strides past him, heart ablaze, mind crushed. She strides over into the other end of the hall where Cloud is passed out in his own bedroom. Corrin's preferred on special instructions that any vacation housing other than the White House have separate bedrooms for herself and her husband, in case one newcomer tries murdering them, at the very least only one dies before the entire house is alerted.

Corrin sneaks into his bedroom, grabbing his luggage and other items before stalking out of the room, hair a mess, still dressed in her pajamas. She tugs the wheeled suitcase out of the foyer and into the sunlit outdoors. Mac is calling her name, running after her, and she paces right up to the edge of the cliffside. The view is beautiful, but she doesn't give a rat's ass about the view. The president rips open her husband's luggage and begins throwing shirts off the edge, left and right she chucks them. A Gucci watch isn't spared her own torment, Corrin throwing it to the ground, and then taking one of Cloud's dress shoes, smacking the watch into oblivion before kicking all the bits off the edge.

Her blood is boiling. The presence of Mac and eventually Robin, who are simply staring at her in open mouthed shock, does nothing to end Corrin's rage. She takes a dress shirt, ripping it apart, button by button. A bottle of aftershave, which Cloud forgot to unpack, is torn away from its protective covering and shattered on the sidewalk. Corrin screams at the sky, and then lifts the suitcase over her head, throwing it as far as she could, watching it careen down the cliffside, hitting rocks below, and almost causing a car to swerve and crash.

There are a few other items still laying around, and Corrin begins to throw those off as well. A pocket knife. Their old engagement ring. Corrin lifts the last item, nothing more than a simple tie, over her head to vault off when another pair of hands latch onto hers, wrestling her gaze away from the cliffside. Cloud is shouting her name, and he forces her to look at him.

"What are you doing?" he shouts at her. "Have you lost your damn mind?"

Corrin gives him a shove, face seething red. "Do you remember what the hell you said to me last night? How dare you!"

"Corrin, you need to calm down..." Cloud tries going for her hands again, and she leans back, slapping him as hard as she can across the face. He collapses to the sidewalk and Mac rushes over to help him up. Robin covers her open mouth with a hand, eyes as wide as saucers. Other members of their secret service detail have stopped working, rather taking a moment to witness the Etch and Gladwell schism taking place in the front driveway.

She looms over her husband like a lion about to pounce on its prey. "All of my political career has been working towards Syrenet! And all you simply want to do is have me end it? Think of all the people who will be about of jobs! All the federal spending that will go to absolutely nothing because of my own husband telling me I should quit the very program keeping our country afloat."

Cloud touches the side of his jaw gingerly, removing his hand away, fingers dabbed red with blood. He looks at Mac. "Can you give her and I a few minutes to talk this out? She's uh... well... please."

Mac nods. "Yes sir," he goes to grab Robin's arm. "I think there's a foreign prime minister on the line for you inside..." The two rush inside the house, leaving Corrin Etch, president of the United States, and Cloud Gladwell, one of the senators of New York to argue and fight their way through a tumultuous ending.

Corrin waits until the surrounding vicinity is silent, and she can hear her husband's ragged breathing, the cut on his face steadily streaming a luscious waterfall of ripe ruby red. Cloud's wave of lemonade hair whips viciously in the wind, facial features soft and eyes muddy with an unreadable emotion that crosses between confusion and sympathy. He holds his hands up like a sign of surrender. "Honey, please just tell me what's upsetting you."

She locks her jaw, and glares at him underneath a veil of disgust. "I just want you to have faith in me. That's all," she pleads. "After the disaster in Oklahoma City, senators from all over the entire country called me and said that I should consider shutting down the program because of the violence and unrest it has caused. Only four senators didn't say anything. Either they thought it was alright to continue, or they didn't want to say anything. You were one of them. So, I thought, as my _husband_ , you'd support my decisions. You didn't speak to me in private about it at all when I announced the Chicago mission, nor did you really talk about it at all yesterday. You just dropped the bomb on me that maybe Syrenet isn't good for my health."

He runs a hand through his hair, almost breaking into a nervous chitter, a laugh of senile proportions. "Not healthy for you? Corrin, you just chucked my entire suitcase and everything in it off a cliff because my concerns about your well-being interfere with work! That sounds quite unhealthy to me."

"I'm putting the well-being of this nation in front of me, like any president should... and that's wrong?" Corrin shakes her head dismissively.

"I didn't say anything about that," Cloud argues. "That's your _job,_ Corrin."

"Then how come you're acting like it's a problem?"

"I'm _not_ ," he winces. "I swear to you that I'm not criticizing you, Corrin."

Corrin closes her eyes and thinks of a time when she was a lot younger. Her father's crouched figure comes into view, and he's placed a cold hand against her face while she shudders against it, spirals of mixed signals flashing throughout her body. How could a man who was so cruel be so kind and loving? She didn't understand it at the time. And it is why, when Corrin Etch watches her father die on the hospital bed, the tears are not salty and bitter, but satisfying and warm, a depth of hatred she's never understood before. Her father never truly believed in her on anything, denying her chance in the world to make a name of herself, but all of that was for naught as she rose higher than anyone expected, with a faithful and dutiful team at her side the entire way.

She opens them and exhales. "My father never believed in me when I was younger. He doubted my decisions, my plans, my future... every single step of the way he'd argue tooth and nail over what I wanted to become. My father was cold enough to rip me out of his will and refuse to give me anything. No land, no titles or even objects because I couldn't be trusted with even the smallest of items. As if I could plan a bad 'future' for a pencil... as if the pencil would feel me breaking it or something stupid."

"I'm not your father," Cloud says, stepping up to her with a warm hug. "I'm nothing like him."

"I know..." Corrin bites her tongue, because she really wants to say that he _is_ like her father, a mean and decrepit old man with shortening grey hairs and a sarcastic white smile that bites for whatever scent of flesh it can get its hands on. She shudders in her husband's grip. "But... you saying that, it just... you made me feel like he did all those years ago when I simply didn't matter."

"Don't worry about that now," he admonishes, placing a warm hand against her cheek. Cloud kisses her forehead. "You are a much better person than him, anyways. I'm only worried because I don't want your actions, while they'll seem harmless and good for the betterment of this world, to come back and be worse than what anyone expected. I don't want to see you hurt."

She smiles and hugs him again. "I'm sorry. For... uh, for throwing your stuff off the cliff..."

"It's just stuff," Cloud smirks. "Expensive stuff, but stuff all the same I suppose." Luckily, for the blonde senator, he had another watch with him by his bedside and he glances at it. "You and I must've been wasted. It's past noon and we've got to get back to the White House. Or... at least, you do. I have an informational meeting with a few other senators who are in town."

He takes her hand and the two of them walk back into the house together. Cloud lets Corrin inside first.

She lets her thoughts wander, one of her favorite activities as of late. Her father's broken stare glares back at her, when she looks into his dead gaze, it seems as if the man who brought her into this world is mustering up all the rage in his feeble body that he can surmount, and throwing it at her in one nasty, withered ball of emotion. Corrin stares dead ahead, simply ignoring Robin and Mac's still slightly perturbed stares. All the president wants is to drown herself in a vat of vodka, but since she shattered one of the last glasses she had because of Roy's AI Unit's stupid mistake, it looks like she'll go straight for the bottle.

Corrin's skin is clammy and cold at the thought of her father. As he knows with his dying last words, her name was lacing his lips before the light vanished, it is all the more satisfying to think about. Everyone else in her family, or at least the ones still alive, or those still sentient enough to _think_ to begin with, like imagining that Corrin Etch's father died thinking of his daughter. All the missed conversations about boys and prom, about the awkward glances over dinner tables at Thanksgiving, all the not wanted yet necessary arguments that built their character... yet she knows the truth and smiles to herself every time she thinks about it. Her father very well died with her name on his lips, but not in any joyous or remorseful means.

She had been his downfall, and Corrin Etch rivaled in it.

Cloud reaches up on the ledge above him over the door to grab the keys. He locks the door and turns around, clapping his hands, rather effectively greeting the staff of their mansion.

However, there's one detail he missed. When Cloud Gladwell turns away from his wife, he always forgets to see.

He always forgets to see the wicked smile dancing across her lips as she fantasizes about his doom, and her crowning, glorious moment of victory.

* * *

 **I think there's a limit to how much fun a person should have when writing a chapter, because holy good god smokes I had so much fun writing this one. We learned a lot about some more of the side characters and characters that have taken stage full front and center. As per usual, I shall go down the line and address them all. Firstly, Shulk and Roy... are Shulk's points valid? I understand that some readers may have already their opinions on one side of the argument or not concerning what thoughts are directed at which characters, but I haven't brought up any of the other Syrenet employee's ideas into the fold yet. Did Shulk hallucinate, mistake someone for Fiora, or actually see his dead wife somehow living and breathing? Wouldn't that be a plot twist and a half, eh?**

 **Secondly, Marth is one guy I'd be walking on eggshells with. I like thinking that the two are brothers in quite the strong bromance, because for once I don't think I've written the two as a couple if they're both in the same story with major roles. Huh. Anyways, Ike is on the same idea with Shulk that Roy is not being all too level headed with this rage, and Marth is over here collapsing at the way side. Will Marth ever accept Ike's advice, you think?**

 **And my favorite part of the chapter was this last one. Because I know some of my readers are older than me, do you know what popular 90's-early 2000's song I referenced in the beginning of Corrin's section, with the president throwing her husband's things off the cliff? You'll get a cookie! Also... what do you think Corrin's father did that was so dastard for her to feel this way? I hope that everything is being spoon fed to you, rather than an entire info dump spelling everything out. And, last question, what do you think Corrin's plans are in store for her husband with the Chicago project, as the two do hand-in-hand together.**

 **Thank you all so very much for reading! I really hope, really, _really_ hope that I can at least grace this story into the 20+ chapter range by the time the end of the month rolls around, as I want this story done before the end of 2017 which very well may be a daunting task given the story's length so far, as we're little under a halfway there. If you all have a spare moment, go and vote on the poll on my profile about your top three favorite characters in Syrenet if you haven't done so! Also, if you like the Hunger Games, go and submit a tribute to my SYOT, Vermillion Shorelines, as I'd love to have your creations and try to do them justice. I plan on having Chapter #17: Old Lace, New Blood, out before the 12th, which is a week from now, so more than likely a late update on Friday or Saturday. Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing! I love you guys! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	17. Chapter 17: Old Lace, New Blood

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #17: Old Lace, New Blood. Ooh... blood... *makes random noises whilst moving my hands* I've been watching my favorite YouTuber pair too much, I got to admit, a husband and wife and anytime there is blood on screen she does this funny thing with her voice and hands that makes me laugh a lot. They're great. Anyways, digression, digression. It has been awhile, nothing else new to see here, move on, move on. I'm excited as we're nearing the end of the arc, three more chapters after this and Arc #2 is complete, which I've officially named 'To the Drawing Board'. We've got another three-scene chapter here, and hopefully it'll be in the same stratosphere word count wise as ooh boy those numbers have been soaring into the high numbers, which I feel super proud about. And more on the story side of things is that I once again started a new story in the Earthbound fandom, where Lucas and Ness are from if anyone is interested (when will I learn to stop writing new things until I finish one?) The world may never know. Review reply(s)!**

 **CrashGuy01- Awww, it looks like just you. I was wondering where Seth went. Anywho... ah... the infamous Shulk breaks down once more and sees Fiora somewhere. I really don't want to say it, but I have to, he was indeed hallucinating. Some other random blonde woman reminded him of his wife... I've intended to have Fiora dead forever pretty much since I started this story. The song I referenced was Bjork's Hyperballad, which a literal phrase form the lyrics, "We live on a mountain, right at the top. I throw little things off, like car parts, bottles, and cutlery. I do this before I wake up to make sure I want to say up here with you..." or something like that, I'm quoting off the top of my head here. Does this chapter title give it away about your Corrin question? I hope not...**

 **Thanks for all the views, I'm glad to see them slowly rising up. Maybe we'll override Icarus Chronicle by the time we reach the end, maybe not, but let's keep ramping them in! Enjoy Chapter #13: Old Lace, New Blood.**

* * *

Roy wishes, now that he looks back from two hours ago, that he never goes out with Shulk at night ever again. He's currently crooked up in a corner of a different bar from the one earlier in the day, slowly and sluggishly tossing back a beer that he bought almost an hour ago and he still hasn't finished. The redhead watches as Shulk moves from person to person around the bar, cracking jokes to girls and asking men to drop their pants, and the antics of his boss seem almost reliant purely on drink. He finds it odd, though not too queerly, that Shulk's reaction to apparently hallucinating - which is what Roy determined had been the case when talking to him earlier in the afternoon - is to go out to another bar in the same precinct, drink heavily as he had been that morning, and let the alcohol do its work.

He snorts, downing another gulp. Roy winces at the movement, pain stirring and bubbling up in his leg, the stiches feeling as if they were ripping at the seams despite the fact doctors had constantly and in consistent times assured him that the wound would heal in a usual and good fashion. Roy wipes a few drops of sweat off his forehead, the air conditioner broken above his head; the machine constantly making whirring sounds that were a mix of a braying dog and a grinder chopping chickens to death. He actually has no idea what type of sound the latter would make, but he figures it'd be pretty terrible if this dying and wheezing air conditioner is anything to go by.

Shulk slides back into their booth, where Roy gets hit by a sudden surge of deja vu as they're once again stuck in a corner of the bar, dim lights, a candle between them... he is suddenly feeling afraid and uncomfortable. He downs another gulp to try and satisfy his beating heart. Black waves stretch from the vertices of the room, as if they're calling his name, and Roy feels partially dizzy. Shulk looks over, a crazed smile plastered across his face, a haziness in his eyes that is bright as a glistening morning fog over a Maine coastal town harbor.

"What's wrong?" he asks worriedly, seeing Roy's visibly woozy state.

"I don't know..." Roy admits, shaking his head. "I-" he shakes his head. "Nevermind about me. You having fun?"

The blonde giggles, curling up into a ball while the moment of hilarity passes, his laugh intoxicating and Roy has a sudden urge to quip a smile, nothing major. "Best night of my life in quite some time, Arcadia."

Roy raises an eyebrow. "Don't you have a wife?"

Shulk tosses back his shot, which seems to be a plethora of mixed colors and presumably mixed tastes, sighing with exasperation with the burning liquid vanishes into his throat. "Nope! She's been long dead!"

"You're wearing your wedding ring?"

"Am I?" the blonde squints, looking down at his hand. He shrugs upon seeing that, like Roy had said, a halcyon band with trusted words warped in a plagued fire resting on his left hand indeed exists. "Well..." he says after a few seconds, "It's not like I'm being held up by it anymore. Who says I can't have some fun?"

"No one's said you can't have fun, Shulk."

"Then what's with the sour attitude?" the commander tilts up the beer bottle, sipping away some of the murky amber liquid down his throat. It sloshes around the bottom of the bottle like blood.

"I think the alcohol is getting to your brain," Roy comments.

"In your dreams," Shulk smiles, eyes wandering. "I'll be right back... excuse me a moment..." Shulk then races up from his seat as apparently a hot and spicy brunette, Shulk's words or cross Roy's heart, walks in with cleavage poking through like the spokes of winter in September.

Roy follows his friend's motions and practically slams his head into the table. He's above going around the bar and asking someone to foolishly come back with him to Syrenet. Where else would he be taking a girl for a one-night stand? As far as he's concerned, relationships are out of the way when working in the particular business he finds himself delved into. From Shulk's own mouth, on the car ride back to headquarters earlier that morning, Roy learns of Mac and Midna's sex adventure in the bathroom. For some reason, a fire burns in his veins, and Roy cannot place a finger on it. He's spoken to Midna three times and each time had been worst than the last.

The very first time he laid eyes on her, he thought the world was coming to an end, and all of his plans were going to be thrown out of the window. Second time, she saves him by pushing him back against a hangar floor while she and Snake battle and try to save his life against Link's cronies. Third meeting, and so far the latest one in a six day span, she's sitting on his hospital bed and he wants to kiss her, but something sits in the back of his mind to tell him it would not be a wise idea. He's been down that path before, and he's not about to go right back to doing the same thing he used to do as an FBI trainee. Roy hates thinking of those days... womanizing had never actually been something he _liked_ doing, he felt he _had_ to do it with how the world revolved.

He bites down on his tongue in passing the time, digging his right hand into his left arm. Midna's face sits inside his conscious, perched on a perfect and pristine white stool, lace trimming a gilded photo frame with her kissed by fire hair and radiant eyes that spoke of a vivacious passion hardly replicated by anyone in the world. She's familiar, all too familiar. Roy wants to believe that it is because he met her on the Boston trip and she's stuck such an impression on him. Part of his mind floats over to the fact that she's an FBI agent, going through the same training he had been in, yet there's no connection there as he would've certainly remembered her face or skill set whilst training... as his trainers constantly praised the redhead for being the best. Roy Arcadia is certain, a good 110% certain that Midna Nye is far better than him and no one spoke a word of her to him. Then where would he remember her from?

Shulk collapses back into the booth, very effectively scaring the crap out of Roy, also breaking him out of his thoughts. _A penny for your thoughts perhaps. Would they ever work? If you paid yourself to think, how often would you do it?_ The blonde is haggard, a crisp red mark against his flushed cheeks, and Roy knows that it has to be of someone's affliction given the shape. He smirks at the Alpha Commander, drinking the last of his beer bottle. The liquid is gone to settle in his stomach, and the scent wafts around the bottle like a disease, reminding him of what he has, what he had, and what he'll never get.

"Where'd you get that?" he asks, motioning towards the indenture in Shulk's face.

The blonde grumbles a bit, arms actually crossed over his chest as if he's pouting. It's taking all of Roy's somewhat credible and unbelievably not torn up honor to not laugh in the face of his executive. He fears that in Shulk's injured and prone state of emotion, the man will take a pen and paper right there and hand him a pink slip. Could someone actually be fired in that way, for a joke? Roy doesn't get a few minutes to think about that as Shulk is answering his very question.

"Miss Brunette who really is a bitch," Shulk places a hand underneath his chin, animatedly fluttering about with pure venom lacing his words, "Thinks that slapping someone like me _just_ because I asked her what type of panties she wore is perfectly A-Okay. I gave her a piece of mind and she struck me again! These ladies aren't giving me any sort of let up here!" he reaches for another shot and Roy thinks fast, taking it out of his hands. "Hey!" Shulk protests.

"You've had four," Roy points out, dumping the contents into his beer bottle. He's had a single beer compared to Shulk's four shots and a very well made martini, which Roy tasted prior to letting his boss consume, as Roy is driving home and needs to be sure Shulk will only be a partial distraction to everyone's safe keeping, including his own. An extra shot won't hurt. "Plus a martini. You're already going to be cranky the rest of the night. I don't need you getting arrested for disorderly conduct."

"Corrin and Snake will just break me out."

Roy snorts. "Please."

"Would you like me to test this theory?"

"I don't think that'll be a very smart idea."

"Come on... it might be fun!"

"You're _drunk_ ," Roy says, exasperatedly.

"Which is the best time to get arrested, obviously!"

Shulk rolls his eyes and then begins scratching at the side of his face. He's stuck doing this very action for several minutes he feels like and when the blonde pulls away, his fingers are dipped in a scarlet, slippery and most likely fresh. Roy's face mimics that of a good horror film expression, mouth agape, eyes wide. The redhead rips a few napkins from the dispenser, handing them to Shulk. The blonde takes them begrudgingly, placing the napkins against the side of his face, the skin stinging against the air of the bar. He only notices now that it is very hot, from the sweat pooling in his sternum and dripping off dark and luscious blonde locks.

"Thanks..." he whispers.

"Do you do that a lot?" Roy inquires.

"Do what?" Shulk echoes, frowning. His head hurts and there's a buzzing coming from his pocket, but he ignores it.

"Injure yourself when you're drunk," the redhead elaborates.

"So what if I do?"

Roy frowns as if he's misheard. He doesn't quite understand the dynamic with everyone who works at Syrenet. It's like everyone enjoys putting themselves in a situation of pain and then gets upset over the fact someone calls them out on their bullshit. He hasn't picked it up on Ike or Pit yet, and to a lesser extent Marth, but he sees it clear as day with Shulk where he'll get hurt, sidestep the fact, and get defensive about it later. The redhead has no idea how to bet one's self, but he's going to with this. Shulk is to get upset at him for this conversation, he foresees the future.

He purses his lips together. "Don't you think that'd be a good sign for you to stop drinking so heavily at that point, then? Just think about all the harm you've probably caused yourself! It could lead to you actually killing yourself if you aren't careful."

Shulk makes a face. "Please... that's just your ass talking. As if that's going to happen!"

"Or you'll at the least do something you'll regret." Roy compromises, drawing the line in the middle. He almost scoffs at the thought of what he's done in the past due to alcohol, and surely there's enough in his past to write an entire memoir on. A book detailing the troubles of a Mr. Roy Arcadia drinking brings laughter to his thoughts, and Roy cracks a smile. He can see it now in limelight, a national bestseller on the New York Times list charting at #1, and it's glorious. ' _How to Tell He's An Alcoholic: Messed Up Stories From Roy Arcadia, Volume 1'._ Not a bad title. Then, a pause. "Does it hurt?"

"No," Shulk comments, extending his arm, examining it as he outstretches it.

"The alcohol inebriates you so you can't feel the pain?"

"Sounds like someone went to school."

"I'm a learned man," Roy gives the smallest glimpse of a smile. "Don't knock me yet."

"If you were so smart, you'd be drinking."

"I know when to stop."

"None of us ever know when to stop," Shulk whines.

"It's the difference between having a fun time or a stupid time," Roy comments. "I'm having a fun time."

The blonde leers at him, sticking out his tongue. "I don't see you drinking heavily."

"One of us has to drive home," Roy points out.

"We can walk."

"I'm not walking eight miles back to headquarters. That's plain stupid, Shulk."

"We'll be fine."

"I don't think so," he argues back. It feels like arguing with a brick wall. Roy grips his beer and shakes the bottle, the remnants of Shulk's failed shot sitting at the bottom. He tosses it back, closing his eyes with relish. A vibration disrupts the heavenly peace, and when he opens his eyes, Shulk is whirling his head around as if he's seen a pixie. Roy lowers the bottle, eyeing his friend warily. It seems like nights on the town with Shulk Roberts will be put on a cease and desist for the time being, if things like this continue happening.

The Alpha Commander reaches into his pocket, pulling out his phone. It's going off like crazy, buzzing in Shulk's hand with such ferocity he nearly drops it on the floor. He grimaces away from the bright light of the screen, halcyon tides surging forward and blinding him. The familiar jingle goes off, the vibration dulls the senses in his hand, and a morsel of sobriety falls back into Shulk's lap. "A phone call..." his voice trails off.

"Who is it?" Roy asks.

Shulk's face is hard to read. "President Corrin. It must be urgent. If you'd excuse me for a moment..."

The blonde races from the booth, leaving Roy all alone once more. He sighs in exasperation, placing a hand underneath his chin. The redhead looks around the bar and settles his gaze to stare at the clock. It reads somewhat late, around nine, nearly quarter to ten given the darkness outside. A few patrons still stumble about and their joyous banter fills the walls. Roy leans all the way around the booth to see Shulk outside, pacing and what looks like shouting into his phone. Roy frowns. " _I wonder what that is about... Corrin is probably being the drama queen she's known to be..."_

He sits back normally, head starting to spin again. Roy clenches down on his lip, a familiar taste pooling the basin of his lower lip. The world turns a few shades of rosy pink and vibrant sunset orange, the blood driving in nerve deep into his teeth, and he shudders. Roy opens his eyes, having shut them, and the odd feeling passes. He looks over at the clock. It's been about ten minutes since he let Shulk go, which he finds out. It only felt like a few seconds between watching his friend leave and the sudden spinning and clenching of his lip and Shulk hasn't been back.

An uneasy feeling stirs in the redhead's stomach. He reaches into his wallet, slapping a fifty down on the table and getting up. Roy gets up and looks outside the window, however unable to see anything as a few of the bar's patrons are up and mingling around the _Open_ sign where Shulk had been standing. He scoffs and heads outside. Roy stops in the crook of the door, and looks to his left. If there had been any sign of Shulk standing there, now nothing sits in his place, an empty hull of a sidewalk that remains as if it had never been occupied.

"You've got to be kidding me..." Roy groans into his hands, then running said body parts through his hair. He checks his phone. It is nearly ten, but that still isn't late enough for a few hours of sleuthing. Nothing can go awry, possibly, he hopes silently and foolishly. The redhead hugs his sides tight, now hit by a chillier and colder air than what had been stuffed inside the bar. He's really missing that beer, and he feels stupid for never taking the shot that he stole from Shulk's grasp.

The redhead looks both ways, unsure of where to go. Shulk's vanished, and he has no idea where he is.

He tries calling the blonde, but to no avail.

It rings four times and there's never someone on the other line to pick it up. He tries about six or seven times, pacing as he's doing this, and Roy gets the same result every time. He stomps his foot on the concrete.

"I can't deal with this right now..." he grumbles. "Alright. Time to find a blonde drunk." With that, Roy races off into the D.C night.

* * *

Shadows fall on the desk, open blinds allowing a streetlamp's light to cascade down in fluorescent tides of warmth. Snake prefers that his office be completely drowned in brightness, as darkness has never been one of his strong suits. The FBI director sits back in his chair at his computer, the desk facing the closed door. He is currently chewing on the end of a pen tip, gnawing away at the plastic as he's run out of Vanilla Wafers and oyster crackers hours ago and the current file plastered across the computer screen _is_ quite interesting; Snake has no interest wandering about the bureau for a good ten minutes just to crave his munchies.

The time reads 11:20 PM on the analog clock by the window, digitalized emerald blocked lines that change with the passing minute, and Snake is amazed by the beauties and intricacies of technology to a point. It is the same 'technology', he deems silently in the break room or in front of the bathroom washing his face, that he puts in his hand every morning. A silent weapon of onyx steel with bullets of fire and death that scream demon wails and insults, the blood he feels run down his hands almost is like another shirt to put on, or an umbrella that protects him from cascading waterfalls of cardinal liquid.

He yawns. Snake hasn't had a good night sleep since Boston, fearing with a slight hint of amusement that Link Collins's ghost is haunting him around the corner with a cigarette and a plate of pasta... or that wickedly devilish knife. The director shudders, a slight draft blowing into the room from the air vent opposite him. The agency is quiet. A few stragglers are still behind, and Snake groups him into that list. The nation comes first, before his sleep. Splayed out on the laptop, in pages of white paper and acrylic abyss black ink are suicide notes written by men who killed themselves before receiving horrible fates for betraying rebel groups out west against the White House.

Snake rubs his beard, stubble poking through in the jawline in coarse, rough patches of sandpaper. Syrup coagulates in between his fingertips, sticky and familiar in a sense that resembles blood. Nothing is making sense on the screen. From the looks of things, it seems to him that there are three specific operations happening in America detailing rebel causes and revolts. The Midwest, which attacked Oklahoma City, led by Sheik Braring, who had the meeting with Link a week or so back. The West, who ransacked a port of Collins Enterprise out in Portland... but Snake has no intel whatsoever on who led that attack. His eyes flicker over a few details about an eastern seaboard underground operation. As far as he's aware, and this is with his keen sight to not trust everyone who walks in D.C, the east coast is spotless, no attacks in any current knowledge being plotted.

"In this day and age that can change any minute..." he mutters.

A knock comes from the door. Snake frowns, looking away from the computer. He shuts the laptop, stuffing a folder into his desk. Corrin, two days earlier before the party, had told him to look into the rebel cases, and the information had to be kept highly classified. Only he and Midna were granted access to the case, and Snake gave Midna the day off because of her birthday.

"Mr. Karlo? Are you in there?" a voice asks from the other side of the door.

The director frowns. The voice is partially familiar, but he's unsure exactly who it belongs to. Snake rubs his chin, leaning back. "It's open."

It, the door that is, swings open and standing in the middle of the hallway is someone Snake Karlo never expected to see. Mac Sarasota, abashedly smiling, waves at the man across the room, a hand behind his back. Snake raises an eyebrow. "Oh. Mac! From the party?"

"Yes sir."

"What can I help you with?" Snake leans forward some in his seat.

"May I come in?"

"Yeah, yeah. Just shut the door please."

Mac obliges, stepping into the room. Snake notices that the secret service agent is not dressed in the typical black suit and white tie affair, no sunglasses adorning the other man's head, and not even a weapon, as far as the director can tell. He scoots back from the desk so he doesn't feel completely bunched up in a wooden box with the smell of manila and plastic crowding up the space.

"You're still working this late?" Mac asks, motioning for the chair in front of Snake's desk, who nods. The secret service agent sits, placing whatever is in his hand on the ground where Snake cannot see it. The director's heart involuntarily begins to beat faster, eyes trying to peer over the edge without making things too obvious. His eyes flash towards the person across the mahogany surface.

He's dealt with people too long to trust anyone after only a conversation or two. "Yeah... the FBI works extensively. Even if that means we catapult ourselves into the late hours of the night, too," Snake frowns. "Why aren't you at the White House? I know that Corrin's agents get the night to themselves if they choose, but I take it you're alone..."

Mac flushes, his neck dyeing a putrid and bubbly carnation pink. "I'm with Robin."

Snake's eyebrows raise up at this information. "Oh? Why is she here?"

"Robin had to ask another one of your employees about something she's been researching. A case that she's working with, I believe." the secret service agent swells his chest somewhat, all in a manner of jesting. "I'm her personal bodyguard."

"Personal bodyguard, huh?" Snake raises an eyebrow, amusedly, and then, to himself, " _Robin could do a lot better with someone like me as her bodyguard. At least we'd enjoy each other's company..."_

"She seems to like me being around."

"Have you asked her that?"

Mac flashes a smile, but there's a sense of hostility behind his pearly whites. "What's the case she had to ask about?"

The director nods, understanding what the secret service agent was detailing. "Ah, right. Robin had gone to speak somewhere over in Western Europe a few months ago... Austria I think. After her arrival, the hotel down the block she had been staying at exploded, some terrorist organization having a field day with their trigger finger. She... uh, even though Robin felt that she wasn't a target of the attack, she's taken it personally and likes asking my agents who are still helping the Austrian government with the incident on what they've discovered. She's donated once or twice for the cause."

The other man bites down on his lip, and runs his palms down the pair of khaki shorts on his legs. "Ah. She said she'll come by and say a word or two before we leave. I'm her ride, after all."

Snake gives a quick smile, but the emotion recedes as soon as it comes and he's full fledged serious now. "What did you seek me out for?"

Mac blushes a serene and deep purple, splotches of amaranthine color filling his pallid face. He tugs at the collar of his dress shirt, sweating just a little. "Oh... I- uh... I was wondering if you could tell me whether or not Midna was here."

This causes the FBI director to take a look at the agent that is a half blend between amusement, curiosity, and disbelief. He remembers quite well, given he spoke to his associate at breakfast just the other day ago, that she had a lovely and amazing one night fling with the very man sitting in front of him. He recalls seeing it with his own eyes, the way Mac blushes as he pulls up his zipper, or Midna's lipstick coating his cheeks. However, he's quite sure himself that Midna only meant it as a 'hit and run' type of deal. It's the woman's specialty after all.

Snake locks his jaw. "Sorry to damper your mood, but she didn't show up today. I gave her the day off. It's her birthday."

Mac's face falls slightly, and it almost brings a chuckle to the generally stoic man's disposition. "Ah. Should I just try tomorrow?"

"What do you need to see her for?" the director crosses his arms, eyes inquisitive. There's nothing threatening in his voice, as Snake ever since an issue in Tahiti knows to not make the other person assume you're onto them for any reason. Friends need to be kept a bay, and Snake isn't quite keen on calling Mac Sarasota a friend any time soon. He trusts that the secret service agent will have his back come a fight, but on details that don't concern themselves with guns or bullets or blood, he'll prefer to be neutral.

The other man looks down at his feet, where he must've placed the bag. Mac pushes his chair back and steps up, grabbing it. "I- I got her a gift." he says proudly, holding it out.

Snake raises his eyebrows for what feels like the fiftieth time that night. He has half the urge to close his eyes and laugh, but he's a gentle man when it comes to people's feelings and he's not about to just rip the carpet from underneath Mac like that. A patterned black and pink bag, one to fit a box in at the very least, hangs off of Mac's arm, and although Snake cannot read the insignia or fancy manuscript name on the side, he's sure that it is something girly.

"Jewelry?"

"It's from Victoria's Secret..." Mac begrudgingly elaborates. "It's just a present."

The FBI director snorts somewhat, suppressing it the second the huff of air is released. He chews on the inside of his already mangled up cheek. Snake has an idea where this is going, but it already looks like Mac's quite taken and flustered over the whole ordeal so he decides to play the game just a little bit longer. Digging the knife in deeper has never truly hurt someone unless it begins to draw blood.

"Perfume?"

"Begins with a P."

"Pottery?" Snake is now just practically talking out of his ass at this point, and to be partially fair, he's enjoying every single second of it.

Mac looks down at his shoes again, swallowing heavily, the color all the way up to the tip tops of his ears, insecurity rising up in his gut. "P- panti-" he tries to get out.

"You didn't quite finish that."

"Panties..." the secret service agent whispers softly.

Snake crosses his arms over his chest. "You want to give Midna... panties?"

Mac begins rubbing his shoulder innocuously. "Yeah... I know."

"Are they any specific kind?"

"Haven't I already said enough?" he begins to protest.

"Are they any specific kind, Mr. Sarasota?" Snake repeats, voice firm, expression solid and cold as stone, hazel eyes darkening. He's not trying to make the guy sweat, but it is working wonders as poor Mac Sarasota is falling apart at the seams from embarrassment. He should've turned down the hallway like a good little soldier and place it on Midna Nye's desk like a smart idiot, but instead he scours out the entire building to go to the kahuna who is in charge of every in-and-out of his agency.

"Lacy ones..."

"Lacy ones," the director accentuates, repeating the word. "You wanted to give my best agent lacy panties from Victoria's Secret?"

"Yes sir..." Mac answers, face pale. Snake has never really been called sir by anyone, despite it being commonplace respect. He understands where all of this must've come from, as it seems like the secret service agent is quite the honest guy who doesn't drink and thinks he can buy girls lacy underwear after one shared sexual experience. He wonders if either person in the relationship think they're dating. "I- I wanted to..." he doesn't finish the sentence, Mac doesn't finish it as he's already sick to his stomach, and Snake's eyes are staring into the essence of his soul.

Snake folds his hands together, sitting up and closer to Mac. "I figure what you're going to say, so let me just stop you there. Can I give you a word of advice, kid?" Mac nods eagerly. "You seem like a great fellow, and probably would be the best thing for Midna if you're following my drift. However, we're going to be working together in Chicago and lord knows where else, and I don't want my top agent having a distraction. Besides, I know how she is and Midna Nye is not a type of woman who'll drop her underwear for a show because some gentleman of hers gave her a pair. She's a lot harder than that to get."

"I'm beyond embarrassed..." Mac whispers.

"Better me than her telling you this. You can very well try giving that to her and seeing how it goes," Snake opines, opening his arms out wide before placing them on the backside of his head. "Corrin is making us have a meeting in a couple of days about the whole Chicago operation. Midna will be there, and you can test this theory out if you wish. I don't want to be the one to break this to you, kid, but Midna probably had a one night fling type of thing with you."

"More than likely..." the secret service agent whips his head back, looking at the ceiling in frustration. Mac is reminded of college, of all the dates he had been stood up on, from all the times the girl would call and call and call yet they never meant what they said. He thinks that Midna is different, she _looks_ different on the outside, and probably is someone extraordinary, but it looks like poor Mac is not going to get a shot at the love life he has always wanted.

"She stared at you from across the mansion's living room floor for a matter of probably only thirty seconds," Snake says. "She spoke to almost every single gentleman that night, Shulk included. Shulk's single, and if she wanted to go after a single man like you, he was right there. Midna is an amazing friend, Mac, but she's been playing the game too long that she often forgets how to be in a relationship that isn't fake or gaining her something. I would know. I asked her firsthand at breakfast a few days ago. Don't get too hung up on it, please?"

Mac rubs his shoulder innocuously, frowning. When he speaks, his voice is dismal and low as if he had been crushed from the inside out. Snake grimaces at the thought, knowing what he's just said, that possibility is not too far off. The secret service agent doesn't look Snake in the eye, eyes squeezed shut. "I'll try not to. Let me go find Robin... she's been wanting to speak with you, but..." his voice is impossibly soft and quiet, a type of quiet that gives Snake heartache and heartbreak from dating excursions years ago. Mac doesn't say goodbye as he trudges out of the director's office.

Silence fills in the empty spaces, and Snake sees out of the corner of his eye sees the analog clock shift even later, to a dark and dreary 11:40 PM, and the director feels the tiredness leech into his bones, scalding and agonizing pain of not getting enough sleep. He wants to sympathize with Mac, he truly does, but what is worse is that he empathizes with him on a far more personal level, every day it is the same pain as she sees her move and see her work and there's all these unspoken words on his tongue that never get said.

Syllables that never meet the light of day. Tears that never spring. Shouts of joy that never reach their peaks. Smiles that never stretch fully. Hearts that beat but do not work at maximum speed. Hands that never touch, fingers that never cling. A mind that never breaks, a soul that never feels and emotes till daybreak. Snake understands Mac's situation all the more as he works, for all the hours spent timelessly waiting and waiting for the right maiden to come riding over the sand dune in the Sahara, glistening in her armor and shake off a snowstorm. To flash that perfect smile where the chills run up and down his arms, and in the heat of the moment there's silence.

Snake considers reopening his laptop, but the idea is not enjoyable to him anymore. He feels worse, now that Mac's presence has fled the room, and as his future leaves with him, there's enough pain in the residue of the conversation to not make him smile. He gets up, straining his back muscles, and there's an euphoric rush of pain to that spot. Words come easy to him, emotions do not. Killing comes easy to him, sparing a life does not.

Snake Karlo knowing where he's been is easy to him, knowing where he's heading is not.

* * *

Cloud Gladwell appreciates one thing in his wife, if above all else, is that she forgives him easily. He's not so sure about other people and how they fall on their knees, begging for their lives to be spared and whatnot, but he knows damn well if the last hour and a half were any indicator that Corrin forgave him for the night before. He wraps his arm around her waist, holding her tight as they walk back to their limousine parked down the street from the expensive steak dinner they had. Their laughs rebound against brick walls and resonate in their hearts as joyous times and occasions.

She smiles as he places a kiss on her forehead, and for a second all is calm and perfect. Cloud lets the tension slide down his synapses like neurons, tingling sparking between his shoulder blades and riveting through his spine. His lemonade hair is slicked back, covered in too many swathe layers of gel that spark a fire in the president's eyes. Corrin admires that her man is a handsome one who gets even more fabulous when he decides to clean himself up. She is wearing a black shawl that covers down to mid thigh, and though there is a romper underneath, a stark blue with patterned pink flowers, she feels exposed. As if there's someone creeping around the corner with a gun, waiting, ever so waiting for her and her husband. Corrin is unsure exactly how strong Cloud even is.

He's not thinking about that at all, if he's to be perfectly honest with himself. The lingering taste of Chardon settles in his gums, pearly stained teeth shading to a vicious and sundering midnight black. The orzo and medium-well skirt steak remain on his tongue, mozzarella cheese and anchovy dressing acting as a second follow-up to the umami taste. Cloud feels his wallet shake with every step, packed quite thickly with bills and a new ring for Corrin which he bought after his meeting earlier that day. It sticks out like a sore thumb underneath the smooth leather of his dress pants, and now he wishes with a slight aftertaste of remorse dancing along his palette that he gave their waiter a far more generous tip.

Their presence is noteworthy, and luckily there aren't that many people out on the streets. The few that notice them either scowl or want some sort of autograph which Corrin has to reluctantly disoblige. She requests earlier that day with her entire personnel around that she and Cloud, from around nine to midnight were to spend an evening alone. They could allow a designated driver, and the White House was a good twenty minute walk or so from the restaurant, so she thinks they'll be perfectly safe. Mac's protests are cut off with a swift glare from the snowstorm haired president, and suggests much sweeter after that perhaps the agent could shadow Robin for the evening, as she knows her friend - a term that is thinning day by day with that damn woman's antics - likes to spend her time down by the park or in a museum, so Mac should practically be asleep by the time Robin Wyndel's tiredness is aroused.

Corrin prefers the loneliness. After making such a stint that morning, which gave her a sharp reprimand by her vice president, she goes out and rebuys everything she threw off the cliff. Cloud staggers to one knee after he comes back from his senator meeting with the pile of goodies, and the president is feeling sour to the bone. She doesn't forget necessarily, but she forgives and will constantly bring it up should she wish to dangle it over his head. She likes imagining it being akin to mistletoe, but with guns and blood and threats involved. Err... scratch the first two.

Both walk together in silence for a couple of minutes, hands linked. Cloud's hands are warm to Corrin's surprisingly freezing ones. Perhaps she is catching a cold, he muses, and the thought is stuffed away for the rest of the night. He likes this, just the two of them, enjoying each other's company and there being no dismal phone call or explosion to break them up.

"Thanks for tonight," Corrin smiles. "I had a great time."

"No problem," he says abashedly, cheeks turning scarlet. "It's a husband's job to treat his lady with the best he can afford, and clearly it seems I can afford quite a lot."

"Indeed you can," she agrees. "I don't even want to see how much I charged my credit card buying all your stuff again."

"I'm sure the market price lowered it extensively since I bought them. They're practically rustic."

"When's the last time we had a dinner like this?" Corrin asks, tightening her grip on her husband's arm. "Just the two of us? Out where no one can pester us? No phone calls, no Syrenet business..."

"I may have had a little less gray in my hair then, honey," Cloud laughs.

"Then what did _my_ hair look like?" she wonders. Cloud opens his mouth to respond with something snarky, most likely. "Actually, do not answer that question. Unless you want me to file divorce papers."

"We couldn't last a day without each other."

Corrin rubs her arms innocuously. "I'm having a meeting tomorrow with the operatives in the Chicago mission. Do you want to be there?"

He looks taken aback by this, frowning. "Am I going to be with you in Chicago?"

"I wasn't planning on dragging you into it, as this is the first time I'll be traveling with them out to the city we're trying to establish a branch in... so there's high risk involved. Don't you have to go back to New York? You've already been here near a week!"

"Then there's no need for me to be there," Cloud smiles sweetly. "Least you'll have Robin and Snake to keep you company. They should suffice."

"You don't sound all that hopeful."

"There's a chance," he snips back and the two laugh a hearty chuckle together. "There's always a chance for success, Corrin."

They walk together some more, before Corrin notices an absence in her pocket. She nearly freezes, rolling her eyes. Unbelievable. She's a woman who remembers nearly everything yet she's able to do this? "Dammit..." she swears.

"What's wrong?" Cloud stops, eyebrows furrowed together.

"I left my phone in the restaurant! I put it down on the sink in the ladies room and walked right out here without it..." the president whines, which is slightly immature, but she doesn't care. "Dammit!"

"Do you want me to go get it?" he offers.

She holds up a hand. "I'm not having you go and walk into the ladies room. It's not even five minutes down the block. I'll go and get it. You can walk to the car if you want."

He kisses her, wanting to argue, but she's perturbed by this, for some reason he sees it in her eyes that she's struggling to cope with the fact she left her phone. Cloud wants to reassure her that everything is fine, but he knows his wife and knacks like this bother her too much, and there's a futile reasoning behind trying to fight with her. He saw what happened when he told his wife that he worried after her health, and for how seriously Corrin Etch took her phone, the senator didn't feel like getting a case of castration to befall upon his unfortunate soul.

"Okay. Call me when you get your phone, and I'll walk back with you." Cloud hugs her tight, Corrin smiling in the tweed warmth of his jacket, the feeling of home resonating inside his chest as she hears his heart beat. _Thump, thump. Drum, drum._

He watches her race off into the night as fast as her high heeled feet could carry her. Cloud leans back against the side of a building, whistling some tune he's heard a thousand times but is unable to recall exactly what it is. Cloud closes his eyes for a few moments, which only feel like seconds until he hears someone shouting. The senator cracks an eye open and sees someone running at him from his left, darkness shrouding him. He tenses, on guard, but the tension goes lax when the stranger is revealed to be nothing more than a ten year-old child, at the very least.

"Mister, please!" the boy shouts, running up to him. Cloud's eyes fill with an emotion that can be only sympathy. The lad catches up to Cloud, obviously in distress, hair a mess, cheeks tear stained with a red tint hinted between them. "Please! You've got to help me, please help me!"

"What's the matter?" he asks, voice strong and urgent.

"My mother..." the boy blubbers out, lower lip beginning to tremble, tears straining out further with his cries becoming weak at every croak. "She collapsed and she doesn't have a phone! I don't know what's wrong with her. Please... she collapsed in the alley way near our house..." he pleads. Cloud, for a split second wants to disbelieve the boy. If he's an actor, he's a damn good actor as he's making Cloud believe something is wrong. But, then the blonde pauses and takes a second glance. There's an emotion in the boy's eyes that look like pure sadness and desperation, a type of thing acting cannot teach as Cloud is quite the expert on the subject. He nods.

"Where is she? Lead me to her and I'll call 911."

The boy grabs Cloud's hand, sobbing the entire time. Cloud wanders for what feels like hours, which is only a minute or two as he's _running_ after the kid who is dragging him along with the ferocity of a tiger. He prays that Corrin finds her phone quick, as he's going to need her power to get an ambulance down in his area faster than someone could dial the emergency hotline.

He follows the lad as he takes him into an alley, which on second thought as Cloud observes it, isn't all too dark and there are houses lined up. A body lays in the center of the ground, a brick wall behind it, and Cloud's heart catches in his throat. There's too much blood pooling around the center, and the boy is sobbing and screaming at the body, which is a woman by the hair style, to wake up and help others.

Cloud reaches into his pocket to grab his phone when the kid whirls on him, a fiery look in his eyes. The senator catches a glimpse of this emotion - _son of a bitch, that kid, Cloud thinks smarmily_ \- before the lad has kicked him straight in the shin and judo chopped the back of his neck. Cloud collapses to one hand as he's sprawled on the ground, watching the kid drag the body away, which he now sees is a dummy dressed up to look like a woman. Smart and clever little fellow he is.

The senator gets back to his feet, groggily somewhat. His pocket begins to vibrate, Corrin must've gotten her phone. Cloud's mind begins to panic. Shit. What is he supposed to do? He's obviously been led into some trap, and there's nothing he can do to get out of it. He wishes now that he argued with Corrin to join her, as sometimes she succumbs to his will if he pleads just the right amount of urgency. A presence looms over the alley, lustful and darkening and it crawls all over Cloud's skin like bullet ants. There's evil in the lurking corners of the bricked wall, the blonde can feel it call to him.

"Who's there?" he asks bravely, hands curling into fists. He's about to go all macho fighter on whatever idiot thinks it is perfectly okay to jump and mug some senator of New York, who if people forget, is also married to the same woman who decides all of her citizens' fate.

A voice calls out in the darkness of the alley. "For such an amazing actor that you are, I'm surprised even you fell for that, Mr. Gladwell."

"Where are you?" Cloud barks. This isn't a question, but a demand. "Show yourself! Unless you're too much of a coward for even that." he taunts.

Something shifts in the far right corner, and a body steps into the light of a lamp above, amber hues glowing downwards. Cloud steps back voluntarily, a lump rising in his throat. The sleek shaft of a gun, a pistol more than likely, takes form in the hue as well, and it is aimed directly at him. The phone in Cloud's pocket begins vibrating again. He reaches a hand down for it, but the pistol is quicker, snapping to it.

"Try and grab your phone, and I go put a bullet in whoever is calling you after I'm done..." the attacker threatens, voice icy and cold to the bone. Chills erupt down the blonde's spine, and the tension settles back on his shoulders.

"I'll have you know that my caller is president Corrin Etch and if you-"

"I'm not an idiot!" the stranger roars. "I know damn well that you're married to her! You think that isn't going to stop me for doing this?"

"Just take my money... please," Cloud breaths inwardly. "I won't go after you, and I'll even lie to her for you. Just put the gun down and take my wallet. You don't- you don't want to do this." His heart is hammering against his chest, the sound of a snare drum filling his ears, and the beats are slow like the other gentleman's footsteps, as all Cloud can tell is that his attacker is male with a gruff voice that sounds hoarse from either smoking or screaming. Or perhaps a female with the ability to make their voice gruff as all hell.

The attacker bellows deep in his throat, and more gelid feelings spawn over Cloud's body. "Perhaps you aren't as stupid as you are naïve. Even if you scream, she won't hear you. I'll make sure of that..." his voice makes the senator think of other things such as ropes and his mind blanches at the thought. The stranger advances.

The senator backs up. "Think very carefully about what you want to do."

"I've already made up my mind, Senator Gladwell."

Cloud thinks of a sunflower field, radiant fluorescent flowers bathing in a halcyon sunlight that warps into a sunburst sunset of warm cardinals and orange hazes. He's holding hands with his wife, and they're happy, content, and she's smiling. He's laughing, holding her tight as the child currently swings around between their shoulders. Gales of wind blow through and the trio looks so picturesque, but now the child is a blue and black blur of blonde hair and sharp, angry eyes that seem downright angry at everything and anything in the world. He's never seen her, he feels, not as a full woman. Perhaps the girl doesn't even exist.

The scene changes to earlier, and he remembers standing there, frozen in shell-shocked stupefaction at his wife's antics with are downright ludicrous. The watch vanishes over the cliffside, and so does a piece of he and Corrin's marriage. He's always loved her, he will always love her, and even if his time is now, there's a heaven out there somewhere to look forward to with his wife. Her lips on his is a thought that nearly brings a smile to his face, but not here, and definitely not now is a time for such a peaceful and tranquil recollection of memories.

Her words are phantoms of candle wisps in the nape of his neck, consonants drenched in a warped and poisonous fire that leech at the skin. Corrin's hands are brittle and stalwart glasses of jagged ice against his, coarse and painful as they rake down his back, drawing blood. He cries out, biting his tongue and lucid copper fills his mouth. He wants to believe in her, he wants to believe in her mission, and here he feels regret for so many years with lies that come full circle. He's denied her what she's wanted in secrecy, and the poor silverette is to be left in this world alone with the thought of never knowing her husband didn't believe in her.

He likes to think he's a good liar, he wants to believe it with the very full sanctity of his heart. But the emotions deny him such the pleasure, as Corrin will sit over a tombstone, weeping into her hands that he is faithful and he is amazing, and he is dead and will never resurface and somehow it is all of her fault. Only if she hadn't wanted to never argue with him in the first place. Cloud smiles at the thought, and he's downright upset he even let himself have that moment of emotion to shine through, he's too precarious and too caught off guard.

"You very well know who I am... Mr. Gladwell." the attacker says in their real voice. Cloud's mouth goes agape, as the voice is familiar and it is a sound he hasn't heard in such a long time. He blindly reaches for his phone, and that's enough. The gun goes off, a bright flash of sulfur and fire which shoots out in a crimson and steel slate tide. The bullet embeds into Cloud's heart, and he's crying out in pain, collapsing to the ground. However, the gunshot is quiet as the spring's arrival due to a silencer, and the senator of New York falls back, a crack, a crack of everything he's ever loved and ever known.

His phone plays a voicemail as he lays there, dying. Corrin's panicked voice fills the line. "Cloud! Why haven't you answered me? Where did you go? Why are you ditching me? Cloud!" Cloud mouths a word, but he's unable to finish it. Before the second bullet embeds into his skull, he cries and thinks.

The senator of New York's very last thought is of his wife before he dies, the world exploding in a roulette of pain and blood and cascading torture as he dies knowing who his killer is in the flesh. It shall haunt him for however long his days shall last.

* * *

 **AND there we are ladies and gentlemen! That was the brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #17: Old Lace, New Blood. Wasn't that just quite the explosive ending, eh? Alright, I'll admit that was in bad taste and I am literally sitting about two feet or so away from my door, so I'll just see myself out and leave the ending here. *gets up and walks off* AND I'm back, just kidding. I digress, lol. But, anyways... there we are. Roy has found himself in a precarious moment of deja vu, and where do you think Shulk went off to? Snake and Mac's scene wasn't originally planned, but looking further on in the arcs to come, I realize that this thing between he and Midna's relationship is critical for a few events, so we've got to start building the bases and blocks somewhere, right? That's all I'll say about that. Their scene was supposed to have a lot of humor, but what I wanted to get across was that Snake cares about his country and operations. Seth, how did his character go in that chapter? Manageable enough I hope. And how about that ending? He and Corrin getting to have one good and final memory before kicking the dust... such a shame. I liked Cloud, but he needs to kick the bucket as he outlived his usefulness. Instead of ending the arc with a death, we've had two almost what feels back to back in a way throughout the _middle_ of the arc. Will we preface Arc 3 and 4 with deaths in the beginning, hm? Cloud knows his murderer, so any speculations as to who they may be? And because I know you all as reviewers, you all probably want to point the finger at Shulk for how the first section ended, but I've got to point something out. Roy and Shulk have their timestamp end somewhere around or nearing ten. Cloud's death is near midnight, and both characters are eating in the same area, local downtown Washington D.C... so any other thoughts? Will be interested on hearing what you all think.**

 **Thank you for reading, as per usual. I hope to have the next chapter, Chapter #18: Shatterproof out by the 27th, which is next Tuesday. And since I'm actually marking it on my calendar, I'll have it fresh in my memory to write, because I sat down and typed this in two days with a reminder flashing me on my phone. Seeing that date will motivate me! And Woohoo, Syrenet has now breached 100k words! Only 41k more to overcome Raven and the Lion and that should be an easy task by the middle of Arc 3, around Chapter 25, so have no fear. Let's reach for 200k Ya'll, that'll be a dream come true. AND, Syrenet is now my 6th story to cross over 100k words, which is huge! That's longer than some novels, I think. I got to beat Icarus Chronicle at 113k first, again, not a problem. You guys are amazing readers and reviewers, so per usual thank you! I hope you all have an amazing day! Have a great week! Love you all! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	18. Chapter 18: Shatterproof

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #18: Shatterproof. Ever since I read a 39 Clues book (god, I remember those, they were the best from like 3rd to 7th grade. I still** ** _have_** **them in my library amongst the four hundred or so books I have) that had the same name, I just knew one day I would need to use it, that word just sounds too cool to me, so I digress tenfold. I am very happy with how the end of this arc has been playing out and although I may go back some and do a few tweaks here and there to dialogue and even add a scene if I feel it is necessary, there isn't all too much I have to scrutinize over. This chapter and the next more than likely will not be back at the 7.5k low that I've reached because no chapter has been shorter than 7k which is quite ridiculous... we may have a 5k or 6k which I think is still quite long for my writing with what I include. We'll get to have everyone together for these couple of chapters and that warms my heart. Review replies.**

 **Seth the Great- I'm glad to hear I gave Snake a spot in the light he deserves. While I'm never worried to please people, as it isn't my end goal, I've written characters in the past that were so strayed from the original path I got a few flames and a couple actual threats (yeah, via PM who would've guessed, people are nuts), so I always want to make sure to toe the line when writing Snake, Mario, Sonic and a few others who are so preciously protected. I'll keep that in mind with how Snake is towards relationships as that helps me out a lot. Interesting, I don't think I've shown enough of Robin for you to make that she's got a complete character down. Yeah... child lure. I'd fall for it. I have to big of a heart. And huh, you say Shulk? In his defense, but since you know me as a writer perhaps take it with a grain of salt, I've devastated that character so much... perhaps the guy needs a break. And actually Shulk does not blame Corrin for Fiora's death, he just knows she died on a mission. Not by who nor how.**

 **CrashGuy01- Who were your original guesses to who was going to die? In all honesty I haven't show that much of Lucas, I realize which needs to change, Roy took the back burner this arc and is only appearing somewhat, Mac and Midna haven't had a lot of light, but you didn't suspect Cloud at all? Then I guess I did my job! Ooh, you thought it** ** _was_** **Snake? I'm surprised to hear that, I am. I can't say if it is or was or someone set something up, but just saying... watch the prime male suspects from now on if there are any. Poor Corrin indeed, that woman is going through a lot and perhaps her war path isn't what she truly needs to be on. Thanks for the dutiful review!**

 **Shatterproof is on it's way, and damn we're nearing the end of the arc... I am excited to have breached 100k in such a short amount of chapters, as Syrenet most definitely is taking over as my longest story, and I think I'll breach 200k with this, I honestly do, and it's going to be the best thing in the world. Enjoy Chapter 18!**

* * *

Robin, now that she's looking back in hindsight realizes that perhaps going into a public place after the rumors she's heard from last night, is not the best thing in the world to do. The light banter of the coffee shop passes around the brick walls with paintings of old celebrities and products that highlight the old 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, and 70's. The vice president remembers having the first taste of a Coca-Cola, age four, and the sweetness lingers behind years later where she's nearing her forties, and it still warms her heart.

She looks across the table at her new 'bodyguard', which is a simple term that Robin uses as an inside joke between her and her protector. Mac Sarasota is currently folding a napkin while she sits and drinks a warm cup of coffee, and the look in his eyes is bleak, ghostly and no light twinkles in the very orbs she recalls only twelve hours ago being bright and alive. Robin passes a warm thank-you to Snake in his office, because she sees Mac sulk out of the other man's office, and her heart worries, her mind scrambles, and now the vice president wants to focus on the wounded warrior in front of her.

It's two in the morning and she gets a call. Her phone goes off like crazy to Corrin's pained voice, evident from crying as the president hiccups, sobbing that something's happened to her poor husband, her Cloud Gladwell is gone, dead or otherwise. Robin keeps it in the back of her head that things may be getting sour, as the Chicago mission looms in her head, the event is to be a few days away and with a death or disappearance on D.C's hands, Syrenet's future looks worse and worse as the seconds go by.

The vice president takes a sip of the coffee, and the liquid burns in her chest, an insatiable fire that scorches her lungs and the organs burn, but there's comfort behind the pain and she's reminded of home. However - and the thought passes her with a grimace - she's not in a coffee shop with Mac to reminisce about home. She's got a job to do and matters to discuss.

"Mac..." she prods gently, seeing the distanced look in his eyes, "You're going to need to stop folding that napkin."

"I can hear you while I'm doing this," he responds, which seems completely uncharacteristic, and Robin looks taken aback, slightly, minimally, but taken aback nonetheless.

"This is important."

"And so is this, Miss Wyndel."

"Mr. Sarasota, put the napkin down," Robin repeats, and the fact she calls him by his first name jars something in Mac, all warmth and familiarity gone from her voice, the tone dipped in sour mustard, sprinkled over sandpaper, and thrown into a meat grinder. "I'm not asking you. I'm ordering you."

Mac blinks, frowns, and then crumples the napkin up in his fist, keeping the fist outstretched on the table. "Okay. I'll listen..." his voice sounds hurt, as if he's unable to believe that someone he truly likes is being just as harsh back, the sweet dream of Robin Wyndel as a matriarch dissolving in a matter of seconds. A permanent scowl settles itself to rest on the secret service agent's face.

Robin bites her lip gently, though it is harsh enough to break the skin and the bit tears away forcefully. She settles to chewing on the inside of her cheek, one hand firmly circled around the coffee cup as if is to protect her from the terrors of the dark and beasts that hunt at night. "Do you know what happened last night?"

He nods. "Somewhat. All I heard this morning when you were on the phone with the president is that something happened to Cloud."

The silverette bites on her cheek again, the lurid taste of blood filling her mouth, and the basin of her gums pools a rich wine red. "Corrin and Cloud both went on a date last night... and that's why you were stuck with me for the time being. Corrin went to go get her phone, and Cloud disappeared when she came back. She called him, heard a loud noise that she couldn't quite discern, and silence. She hasn't found him all morning."

Mac pales visibly, and his fist uncurls, the napkin falling out of it and it slowly glides to the floor. He doesn't bother to pick it up. "A gunshot? It'd explain the silence... so..."

"Or he dropped it." Robin provides another answer as she's sick to her stomach, thinking of yesterday and seeing Cloud's lemonade hair and his smile and she's unable to think of the senator being dead, it's an impossible though, but while it is impossible, _it's_ possible, but she's been through too much in her life to like thinking of negative possibilities.

"Robin..." Mac's voice trails off as if he's chiding her for thinking such a childish ruse. He looks at her with admonishing eyes, as he knows her better and she should feel ashamed. Partially. Perhaps fully. He tries to keep his voice even, yet there is a hurt and question in that, and he asks himself why would he feel something like that when he—when he does not even care about the bloody party, or why does he care about Cloud in the first place, he's spoken like four words to him. Robin does not say anything for a moment; just looks at him with those calm steady eyes. She feels uncomfortable under his stare but somehow finds it in her liking the attention the little secret service agent is giving her. She has drunk too much wine, she decides, because heat coils in the pit of her stomach, and both her neck and cheeks feel hotter than the Washington D.C sun. Unconsciously she starts tapping the chair to her right hip, her muscles going slack though she feels a bit nervous all of the sudden.

"I'm sorry!" Robin blurts out. "That was foolish of me, I get it. Cloud's either dead or disappeared."

"Would you rather have Mr. Gladwell dead or vanished?" Mac asks, after a few seconds of a pause, and the question is Earth-shattering. She looks up at him, eyes aghast and face drawled in, color receding until her lips are as white as a fresh winter snow laying down on soil laden ground.

"Excuse me?" the vice president retorts, voice disgruntled, facial features twisting like sinew scars.

Mac blushes up to his neck. "That's not what I meant!" he says hurriedly, waving his hands back and forth like a madman, fear filling his chilling liquid orbs. "I mean, which one is better on Corrin's consciousness? We don't want our president going insane, do we?"

She takes a few moments to ponder this. Corrin is no stable house, Robin knows it, she's seen it, she's lived it, she's kissed it and felt it before, so Robin Wyndel knows perfectly and one hundred percent that the silverette leading the nation can go tick tock boom at any moment. However, she tries thinking about it a little bit more logically. If Cloud is to have vanished in thin air and be held like a captive somewhere instead, the thought is more likely to sit on Corrin's mind forever and ever, plaguing the woman worse than before. Should her husband be dead - Robin's heart lumps in her throat at the very fathom of pursuing such a traitorous thought - Corrin cries her grief and finds a way to get over it the way a lot of people do. In their work. Is Syrenet worth it?

"It'd be the best if Corrin ended the project till either we find Cloud or Cloud's..." she's hesitant to finish the statement, so she bites down on her lip, counts to ten, says the Lord's prayer, and then utters it. "Cloud's murderer!" she gasps aloud, closing her eyes. Mac watches in horrified stupefaction at what is taking place in front of him. "I'm sorry, again," Robin apologizes. "I'm an optimist. I am. Even _thinking_ negative thoughts hurt."

"Then why are you in politics if negativity hurts you?" Mac asks, and the question has passed the silverette's mind before. "If you hate negativity, then you're in the wrong place."

Robin sets a smile on her face that is partially broken, and he finally sees the woman for who she really is; a benevolent human being caught in a spin cycle of danger and treachery with threats lacing her skin and peeling back her soul, where wrong one step is a silver bullet in her brain and everything can fall apart in an instance. Mac understands, from the very look in her eyes and the way her lips settle down in a quiver that Robin is constantly afraid of things going wrong, things sinking faster than Titanic, and some of it can be partially her fault.

"Sometimes the world needs a good politician. I can be that person," Robin lets out. "I seldom get my hands dirty."

Mac leans back in his chair, picking up the crumpled napkin off the floor. It is a dirty white rag now, covered in dust and people's footprints embedded into the tile and cotton. "So, what is our game plan now that this Cloud issue has come up? We abort our plans?"

Robin shakes her head in dissent. "Corrin never gives up. She's been planning this Chicago visit for months. Oklahoma City was indeed a disaster, and Cloud will set her aback, but our president is not down for the count. It just means we have to keep our backs covered, and be alert. Why would someone want to kill a senator from New York _unless_ their intentions weren't towards the president in some way?"

"I don't know, Robin. I wish I could answer that. But I can't."

He can't, and the vice president knows this. A tear falls from her cheeks, and she's up, giving Mac a ten to pay for their coffee, and she's bustling out into the light.

It's time for Chicago to begin.

* * *

Shulk hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath. He inhales deeply, air flooding into his lungs. The tension melted away like wax on a candle stick, and the briefing room becomes lighter, banter passing gently over his ears as he sees Snake embrace Robin and Mac who walk in later than they're supposed to. Ike, Marth, and Pit are sitting over in one of the corners, chatting, and the blonde knows that there is something circling in their brains, like clockwork and broken machinery together making an oily mess. Roy and Midna speak in hushed tones on the other side of the corner, and all Shulk has for company is Lucas, the AI Unit and his disk placed on the table, Lucas sitting 'crisscross applesauce' on the disk, highlighted by a blue aura, hands levitating upwards, eyes closed.

"What are you doing?" Shulk asks gruffly after a few moments of silence. "Don't you know how silly you look?"

Lucas opens an eye, and the commander of Alpha Squad realizes just how much he's missed speaking to his voice inside his head, to see his true best friend actually moving about where he can see him. Ness's face still is stuck in Shulk's eyes whenever he closes them, a wave of midnight hair swooping down on a raven's wing, soulless orbs that speak of betrayal and death, and Shulk's blood runs cold. "I am meditating. Do not speak to me, it breaks the silence."

"Everyone's talking around you," the blonde points out. "And I'm the loudest voice you hear?"

"You're the only one talking to me. So, you're the only one I'm hearing."

Shulk shrugs, mutters underneath his breath about children being too damn weird, and goes back to thinking of before. Of Corrin, which is the topic centered in his brain.

Shulk is Corrin's mind-numbing ecstasy.

He really isn't, in hindsight, he realizes with a second thought. The blonde feels it though, stirring beneath his eyelids like cinder blocks that Corrin gives him sideways glances over glasses over Chardon and Merlot, where murky wine spills into carpets, and her glare musters a pure hatred in him. Shulk Roberts has not felt pure anger and an incorrigible rage since he and Fiora's wedding night, but he hates thinking about it. It's broken and nasty, yet gorgeous, and he's unable to comprehend why this is the case.

Shulk is Corrin's teenage nervousness.

Once again, this is not true. Shulk is the warped version of Corrin Etch, the blonde comes to terms with one drunken evening in the tub where lukewarm water rises up to his elbows while he's still dressed in a suit. The lapels stink of muck and mildew, Shulk's throat on fire, his belly aching, and the dead whore in the bedroom a forgotten speck of dust in a whirlwind inside a dust devil. He's tired of being used, but he still has no idea if he is or isn't being taken advantage of. Shulk Roberts is Corrin's failure. She's tried shaping him and he's a molded lump of clay melted down by heat and hatred, a pain that he's not successful, he doesn't have the hot spouse, or the sports car, or a political career. Instead, he gets the worst scrapings from the table, the dead spouse, a dingy surfboard, and a lifetime dedicated to black rifles manufactured by Anubis himself.

Shulk is Corrin's anxious expectancy.

" _Expectancy to what?"_ he thinks to himself. To provisions at the gates of heaven? Shulk likes, on days when he is younger and had time off, to go for drives around the east coast and piss off a cliff at every rest stop near the ocean he could. The blood flows through his veins, gives him life, oxygen, a reminder that he's single, alone and yet with company, and there's a mission to complete one day, somewhere, for the greater good, for the spacious and honorable red, white, and blue. Fiora sits in his skull like an ant, a disease that slips into his ear similar to an amoeba from a hot spring, but it's a disease he does not want to get rid of, a pain he needs to thrive off of, a love that he hopes consumes him one day. He's dishonored his words to his wife too many times, but she forgives him in his dreams until she drives the knife straight into his heart. Shulk has woken up in a cold sweat more than once on several occasions.

Shulk is clay. _Her_ clay.

He's confused. Is he Fiora's, or is he Corrin's? Shulk has felt an attachment, though barely hanging on, to his dead wife, the casket grim and black because he took it out of the sodded Earth and hid it somewhere. The anguish in his heart lingers on moments of bliss and pure white, supernovas and stars hanging underneath lusted curtains and closets where Fiora's ghost can no longer haunt him. His tears stay fresh on his skin, moistening parch feelings that tickle the back of his throat, an oasis of unquenchable thirst, and Corrin does not provide that. Corrin provides a never ending hunger. A hunger to climb the ladder that is chaos, to stare at the pit that is order down below, and Shulk Roberts cares, he cares in the end to be someone who made a difference for the better because the American people asked him to do so.

Shulk is Corrin's embarrassment. He wants to cry.

It's been set out since day one, he knows it as the chilled whispers linger down his back and crack into his spin, seeds of torment and an eternal abyss of regret and revenge that worms out in times of desperation. Words only mean so much to Shulk, the times he needs them is in actuality never, as a beer bottle or curved glass can resemble so much. He slides his hands up, he slides them down, and he forgets all that is there when the bottle fills and fills, and Shulk Roberts wishes he never met Syrenet in the first place.

Shulk is Corrin's downward spiral.

He knows it. He's always known it. From the very first day they met, when they pass hands over poker cards, as the jangling of olive straws against martini glasses clash with the hustle and bustle of the casino. Golden fingers link together, coins rattle in pockets, and Shulk has his fate laid out from day one. With Fiora dead, there's a hole. Who fixes the hole? It's Corrin. It's always been Corrin Etch. The two are made for each other, as old men with squinty eyes say, closing dusty books. That they're bread and butter and cotton and gin and yin and yang... until Shulk Roberts is the reason why Corrin will meet her downfall.

The folder slapping down on the table startles him, and when he regains his composure, everyone is staring at him. Corrin's in the middle of the table, eyebrows furrowed, and an embarrassing heat crawls onto Shulk's face, his brow redder than Midna's scarlet letter hair.

"Sorry..." he mutters. "I was... I was just thinking."

Corrin looks straight through him, eyes narrowed, and he knows she doesn't believe him, but that he's thinking of her in more ways than one. She's unsure whether to be sick or grateful someone at the very least pays attention to her. Shulk examines the room, counting everyone who is present, from left to right in clockwise order starting with the blonde himself. Shulk, Lucas, Roy, Midna, Mac, Snake, Robin, Corrin, Pit, Marth, Ike, and back to Shulk himself. Eleven people on one mission, ten technically speaking as he always considers Lucas a person but others, as he knows the president has made it very well known, does not.

The silverette clears her throat and smiles. "Thank you all for being here on time. I'm sorry for having run a little bit late, but this one senator out in Wyoming would not let me off the phone. I'm-"

Pit cuts her off, and if looks could kill, the technician would have his white wings strangling him till nothing remained but a curl of mahogany hair where he once stood. "I'm sorry about Cloud, we all are. I just hope-"

"You shall hope for nothing," Corrin snaps, eyes flashing towards Pit who jumps. Shulk sees that the president's hands are shaking, and they curl as if they want to be around the technician's throat which is not too far off where the blonde wants his hands to be at times. "If anyone mentions my husband to me without me prompting him, I send you back to D.C and terminate your job position immediately. I do not want to discuss Cloud, and that's final. Do I make myself clear?" Her gaze is directed at the current brunette who nearly pees his pants from her viciousness.

"Yes ma'am..."

"What's he doing here for?" she then asks, eyes looking at Shulk, her question regarding Lucas. The AI Unit, who had stayed sitting for the whole two minutes after the president's arrival, stands with his chin jutted out, a defiant look in his eyes, and there's a brilliance in him that cannot be understated.

Shulk's throat is on fire. "He's here to be briefed. He has any right to listen as much as we do."

"I don't see Marth, Ike, or Roy's AI Units here," Corrin points out. "Don't you think it would be fair for them _all_ to be here, commander?"

To the blonde's surprise, Ike speaks up. "None of us have a connection to them like Shulk does. Lucas is Shulk's best friend, through and through. He's been with him the longest, after all."

Lucas waves back at Corrin, who is standing there nearly petrified out of mortification, but done in some other way than being humiliated as she's ashamed her power is undermined. "Hello!"

"Hi," Corrin mutters, and her gaze is directed downwards, guilt running across the top of her hands and stabbing at her heart with infected knives, syringes, and needles.

Snake is next to speak. "A lot of us in here actually know what this meeting is for. So, you might as well spit it out Corrin."

She locks her jaw, looking at him with a coldness only described as heartlessness. To the FBI director's credit, he does not flinch, instead raising an eyebrow, expecting her to just say a comeback as he's had a terrible day thinking of last night and his dismissal to Mac's misconstrued feelings, coming to terms with his own, and then being looked at as if he knew something about Cloud's misfortune.

The president grimaces, claps her hands together, and spills the beans. "In two days time, the ten of us in the room along a few other security agents will be going to Chicago to start a new Syrenet branch." The responses almost come flooding in immediately after Chicago leaves her lips, for it is the matter of predictability in knowing what comes next.

"Don't you think we should wait till this Cloud thing blows over?" Mac blurts, completely forgetting what his _boss_ had just said moments earlier.

"Holy shit, Shulk wasn't lying to me..." Roy gives a nervous laugh.

"I don't think this is a good idea anymore..." Robin chews on the bottom of her lip nervously.

Pit's reaction is strange, as he tips his head back and lets out a laugh. Ike's is angry, full of vitriol and blackness. "If you say what I think you're going to say next, I swear it. You. Can. Count. Me. Out!"

Marth's takes the gold, takes the cake, gets the drum beat, the award for best acting, and his face goes pale like a corpse. "You're serious? Are you shitting me Corrin? After the disaster in Oklahoma, you just want to go and try again? It hasn't even been that long!"

Corrin slams her hand down on the table, and everything goes silent. Like Fiora and Shulk's wedding, the blonde who's wife is dead, recalls quietly, with a smirk. "SHUT UP! ALL OF YOU!" The voices die as soon as they came up, Marth caught halfway between a curse, and the f word slips out, leaving Ike completely red in the face. Mac scowls at the cursing and nearly raises his voice to let the bluenette have a complete piece of his mind. "Yes..." Corrin says after a moment of very much needed silence, rage dripping off every syllable. Consonants and vowels burn into hisses from a venomous snake, the venomous snake with emerald eyes and a snowstorm for hair. "We are going to Chicago. Now, before you all jump down my throats, you will, _one_ by _one_ tell me why it's a good idea or a bad idea, and then I'll give you my reasoning."

Pit's first. "You know what happened last time we tried. What if something goes wrong and we lose even more of us?"

Followed by Marth. "Ike promised me that you wouldn't be sending me on a mission after Oklahoma, and now we're all wringed together in this doomed, prophetic mission of yours?"

Ike brings up the rear. "You gave me your word Madam President! Does that mean nothing to you?"

Shulk shrugs, a constant light twinkling in his eyes. "You made me vomit at dinner over the news, and your intentions still are lost to me, so I suppose I do not care either way."

Lucas pumps a fist in the air. "I haven't been in action for months! This sounds like fun! When do we leave?" Everyone, including Corrin, stares at the AI Unit with a fascination between confusion and terror, the blonde looking around, a stupid grin plastered on his cheerful face, but he's enjoying the spotlight.

Roy shakes his head in disbelief. "Midna, Snake, and I _just_ got back from a mission in Boston, and you just want to send us on another? I almost died had they not been there, and I'm pretty sure my wounds require resting. Not getting back in the action and nearly losing my head."

Midna nods. "I agree with Roy. Can't this wait?"

Snake, as the voice of reason, which he knows he is with a rugged sigh, rubbing his beard, elaborates. "I spoke to Cloud at the dinner party, Corrin. Syrenet is important, it's practically your child, but you also have nine other lives to consider. Cloud told me, ordered me rather, that when he was to be back up in New York away, that I'm to keep you safe. I can't be so sure it's possible not having you get hurt in hostile territory out there."

Mac, who realizes he let the FBI director, scowls and buts in. "This doesn't feel like the best time to do this... and that's just me."

Robin is last, and Shulk sees in the vice president and look of being lost, a gaze he's replicated time and time before where nothing remains but a cold husk that stings and stings and darkens wherever it gets even a morsel of light. Her words are haunting, to Shulk at the very least. "I don't want this becoming bigger than it needs to be, Corrin. Syrenet isn't meant to save America, only mend it."

Silence washes over the group, and for a minute, the commander of Alpha Squad thinks that everyone is about to be executed, or Corrin as the benevolent woman she is will pull an April's Fool out of nowhere, even though that thought has not passed his mind and he's grateful that it hasn't. The silverette nods her head at everything being said, and it hits him that Lucas is the only one agreeing to go on the Chicago mission. Surely if...

Corrin runs a hand through her hair, sighing heavily. "Syrenet is meant to be a technological aid to cities that need economic repair. I am mending these places, which connects our country nationally, so it's healing itself. The Midwest does not look our operation, and while Syrenet is a failure in Oklahoma City, we as an organization cannot simply give up and let one setback be the end of us! I very well cannot connect the East and West without unifying the Midwest as a joining branch between us. No matter where we go, Syrenet is going to be resisted, and there's nothing I can do about that. Cloud has wanted me to do whatever I can to fix the nation he loves, and this I feel is the way we do it. I'm sorry to you, Marth, and Ike for what happened when you two led a mission. However, you guys are still my best fighters and I very well can't have you all sit out. Roy, Midna... your help in Boston was invaluable. We cut out a cancerous disease that would've destroyed our operation from the inside out and then we'd all probably be dead had Link Collins succeeded in supplying rebel forces with weapons. If Sheik with her Midwestern forces wish to get in our way again, we raise a boot and crush all oppressors should that be the case. I'm sorry that things have not turned out the way I wanted them to when Syrenet became a main branch of the government all those years ago, but if we all work together... perhaps we could turn this thing around and it'll start to work! Okay? Are you all with me? I very well can't do it alone."

Shulk watches as the emotions on everyone's faces turn compliant, understanding in all facets of understanding. Marth leans forward, eyes squeezed shut as he does not want to look Corrin in the eye. "I do have one question though."

"And what's that?"

"Like Oklahoma City, a Syrenet commander leads the mission and acts as the main watcher of all interactions. Ike controlled the last one, and since he, myself, and Shulk are the only three commanders here... who's leading Syrenet into Chicago?"

Corrin bites down on her lip, and Shulk knows what she's going to say. It's going to be him, blonde haired and broken, to take on a struggling mission of making sure everyone stays safe, fighting back rebels, and the world is to not blow up on his watch. "You, Marth," the silverette answers the commander's question. "You're leading us."

Shulk almost laughs.

He didn't expect that.

* * *

Sunlight streams through the apartment and Sheik Braring is reminded for the tenth time in one day that she hates brightness, and sunlight is high among other sources on that list. She grumbles awake from her nap, the bustle of downtown Oklahoma City echoing around brick walls and cardboard boxes, the blonde bustling over to the window to pull the curtains together. Shade covers the wooden floor of her apartment, chills sliding underneath her feet, and Sheik shivers.

She hates sunlight with a passion. It's the reason she's stopped drinking, where alcohol hurts her brain to even try and utter the sounds that make the word. Sunlight means mornings with headaches, mornings with rumbles emerging from her stomach that rocket and ricochet the bed. Halcyon lights mean toilet seats, white yet messy, pale and germ filled, and then comes the bile, the chunks, and the nastiness afterwards. She dislikes retching into the grimy toilet, stars exploding in her head. Nothing's come out yet, but that's not very reassuring to her every morning. She moans and wonders if she'd feel better if she just got it over with. She'll stare into the bowl with a glare and fantasize, though her fantasies are drowning in greyscale on what she threw up.

Her dad's words echo in her brain as she shuffles back to the couch, wanting to catch some shut eye. " _Between veterans and diehards of the track, there's a saying. Physics doesn't care about your angst. And that's the simplest truth about life on the racing circuit."_

"And neither does booze..." Sheik titters out with a laugh. She remembers, back in college, that she was given an assignment by some creepy and moth eaten professor to write an essay on the pros and cons of drinking. Her mind nearly breaks in an insane laugh at the very thought of there being positives to inhaling toxins into your body, whether they be liquid, whole, or imaginative. The pencil goes against the paper, and Sheik Braring has never written something so passionate in her life, the words come together and she's some Leonardo Da Vinci of essay writing.

After she's finishing the rant of why alcohol sucks - Sheik Braring does deserve the 70 she got on the paper because she does not answer the prompt fully, in which she flips off her professor with a smug smile - she draws a deep breath and turns to look out the window not covered up by curtains. Anywhere but at the box. She does not remember hearing the doorbell ring back in the wee hours of the morning, and when she opens the door... there is this cardboard box with her name on it, a fancy manuscript of red marker definitely pinpointing that its hers. She cannot hear the creaks of the box against the rickety walkway leading down to the apartment's parking lot, and she asks her neighbors if they heard something. Nay, they all say, and Sheik is throwing herself back inside due to terror. Nothing blows up in her face, but she does not trust the box. She stares at it from across the kitchen counter, eyes barely peering above the granite, as there's a devil sitting there, mocking her, and she hates being mocked.

A word is on the box, written on the top in a luscious black ink, midnight and onyx swirls that create something she dares not read. Sheik Braring wants to try and take her mind off of things, try hard to not care what people tell her, but that'll only be the end of things. She gives up from caring what people think when she's twelve. Her father places a sniper rifle in her hand, disappears, and then her father is replaced by her mother.

And for some reason those eyes pierced the older girl, Sheik recalls now. She's stuck with the gun in her hands, mortified while summer winds blow her mother's hair around. Her body freezes and he felt like she couldn't move. Her breathing became rapid and no matter how hard she tries, she couldn't get away. It's simple, swing around and fire a bullet pointe blank at her mother, end her pathetic life and she's to never be questioned about motives again. Dark and foreboding, but it's perhaps the best thing she can do. Even as her mother gets closer to her, the older woman's head still cocked to one side, eyes ablaze; even as the younger - Sheik, that is - cocks the gun, her mind came to rest over the fact she couldn't do a thing. Sheik stares, the thousand yard stare is forever and true, shocked, at her mother. Why is this a problem? Should this be a problem? Her eyes are closed and her hands rested on both sides of the rifle, and it feels like home. It feels like home forever and ever, this is where she's supposed to be. Still she couldn't get away. Then again she wasn't really trying, she is never trying to escape her past, but have her past catch up with her. After a second of resisting her body motions, Sheik lets go and just relaxes and she lets it happen. The bullet flies out and dings a target out in the brush, and her pride swells up. This continued for about a straight minute until her own mind came back to her, and Sheik blinks, her mother still glaring, her mother still creeping up closer. With (almost) every ounce of strength she had, she shoves the gun into the dirt and wiped her lips, the gun having a kickback and busting her lip till copper coats the skin. "Oh my God... Sheik, what do you think you're doing?" she hisses to herself, glaring.

Yet, she's upset at something that feels good, it feels absolutely right.

"Sheik Braring! What are you doing?" her mother snaps at her over the wind, the bitter wind that is stark and true and loving.

"Firing a sniper rifle!" she retorts back. "What does it _look_ like I'm doing?" her voice is taunting.

And so again and again she pulls back the scope, looks down it and fires all night till the shells pool around her feet, her mother rolls her eyes, and so many neighbors have voiced noise complaints. Sheik files through all of them when she asks the deputy, laughing, laughing, and laughing some more.

It is here, now that she remembers the past, where Sheik sits up on the couch, eyeing the box.

She vaults for it, hands seizing the side.

The word, in the black ink of death and oil, corruption, greed, remorse, sadness, and failure, reads one word, the word she's dared not look at.

 _Revolution._ The word is revolution.

"Revolution..." Sheik mouths aloud, frowning. There's no tag saying who sent it, and that puzzles her even further.

She rips open the package, takes all the bubble wrap out, and looks down. Her mouth hangs open, the shock still running through her veins and hitting all the synapses she could find. "Oh my god..." she exhales, and then the world becomes a whole lot brighter.

It's time for a revolution. And nothing is going to stop her.

Not even Corrin Etch and definitely not Syrenet.

* * *

 **And voila! There we are ladies and gents, Chapter #18: Shatterproof. I realize I'm about four days behind on posting and this has now thrown my entire schedule off, as I was supposed to have a Hunger Games chapter out today for one story, and a chapter for another fandom out tomorrow... it looks like I'm back to the drawing board. Oh well. But wow, a lot has indeed happened!**

 **Let's dissect a few things, as seeing ya'll give speculations are amazing and fun to see if you're right or wrong or not. (I realize, as I'm a southern kid, I only say ya'll in my writing, but not my actual speaking. I speak almost like writing, which I find odd, all formal and synonym filled... perhaps that's why I have like zero friends. I kid and digress). Do you think Robin feels guilty at all with Cloud, with her acting the way she is? I have an idea I want to do with her character, but there is something holding me off on it so it may wait. Which of the 'Shulk is Corrin's ...' did you like the most, and which paragraph subsequent with each sentence did you like, too? They don't have to match up. I had a lot of fun writing that section, as just like Corrin, getting inside Shulk's mind and writing all the stairways and ladders and directions he can go in makes me feel like an M.C Escher painting.**

 **It's been five or six chapters since we've seen Lucas too! Since Shulk is going to Chicago, Lucas might as well, right? Corrin's speech was also fun thinking of, as she hasn't been a leader and it is nigh time she leads her troops into battle, even though Marth is going to be the 'commander' of the Chicago mission. While he isn't the one necessarily setting up the branch and being all diplomatic, which is why Robin and Corrin are indeed going, he's got a job to do. Raise of hands if you think Marth will fail. Raise of hands if you think Marth will succeed in keeping the mission together.**

 **I got a PM asking me a question I couldn't answer, but something I could have you all speculate instead, so it makes it even better! What is Sheik's connection to Syrenet, and in a way, Corrin? She clearly has some sort of vendetta against the government, and if someone gets this right I swear to god I'm gonna be celibate in my adult life, like I'll be floored if someone guesses this. Anyways, what do you think was in Sheik's package? Revolution, which is quite the word, can be one of two main meanings, but my readers know me and which one _I'm_ using. Who do you think sent it? Someone we've seen, or someone yet to come? I'll be interested in hearing what you have to say. **

**And wow, just two chapters left to go! I'm super excited! I'm hoping to have a chapter or two a week, if I can manage, because I spent way too long for just one arc in this story, and with twenty chapters to go after Chapter #20, I'm gonna need to get my act together. I am planning for an update probably no later than the 9th, which is Chapter #19: Robin's Automatic Army. Ooh, any guesses? As usual, thank you so much for reviewing and sticking around with this massive AN, my fingers are tired from writing 5.6k in about two hours *phew* Please let me know your answers as I'm delighted to hear what you think! Thanks so much for being amazing readers and fans. Have an amazing day! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	19. Chapter 19: Robin's Automatic Army

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #19: Robin's Automatic Army. Short and funny quip, originally this was called Mortmain's Fight Club from the Infernal Devices series, scrapped that idea, and then have thought about reimagining it for the Smash fandom as a seriously dark thriller and romance/horror with like fifteen ships between the ten main characters... with the title of Robin's Automaton Army, but Automatic I also like and thus this chapter title was born. Arc #2 is slowly tidying up things and with one more chapter left to go, shall we have some sort of explosive ending to the first half of the story? (Can't believe we've nearly made it that far ya'll, this word count is** ** _insane_** **and I hope we can make it far longer than anything else I've ever written. Review replies!**

 **Ecenema- Eyy, we've got a new face! Hello! *waves ecstatically* Glad to see you pop up in the reviews, hope you stick around for the long run! And hahaha, thanks for scrolling through the rest of this crap that this fandom spews out (sometimes I wonder what is going on with these lads and gals who don't know a period from a question mark), and yep, not updating for thirteen days will do that. Make sure you follow! Oh, and don't worry, you won't be getting your questions answered for quite some time. Tootles!**

 **Metroid Killer- Well, I expected nothing to happen, it's just hilarious that someone would even think of threatening me over how I am writing a character. People's love goes a long way, a long creepy way. To your PM, I'm slightly confused. Is Sheik's connection in your head to either Marth or Cloud, because you didn't make that quite clear. (Granted, nothing in this story is made clear till the bitter end like a good story should *crosses fingers*) Glad to see you reading this!**

 **I'm sort of bummed by the lack of reviews lately as I'm pouring my heart and soul into this piece, but thus is the life of a fanfic author. I'll have to grin and bar it. The arc is coming to a close, and Corrin has let Marth and the rest of the gang know that our broken apart at the hinges bluenette is leading this mission. I bet this will not bode well. Enjoy Chapter #19: Robin's Automatic Army!**

* * *

The stunned silence after Corrin's revelation to the group hangs in the air precociously, like molasses slowly dripping off a spoon at a snail's pace till eventually every word sinks in deep. Marth is looking at the president, face angled in shock and pain, other unreadable emotions that is starting to make Ike worry. Everyone waits with bated breaths for a reaction, but all Corrin is doing is trying to move on by pulling out folders and passing them around. Snake's face is priceless, as he's known many of the Syrenet commanders for quite some time and has his own few opinions on them to pass over, and it's stinging in deeply.

Roy stutters out a nervous laugh, head cocked to the side, but all Shulk can do is stare at Marth and see the fright fill in those diamond orbs, glazed over eyes that reflect the terror of a cornered doe before a shotgun shell embeds itself in the poor animal's brain. The commander of Beta Squad slams his hand down on the table, giving the helm of the United States quite the murderous glare.

"No," Marth says, voice venomous, eyes looking low, and his hands are balled into fists. Shulk can see out of the corner of his eye that Robin's eyes widen, and Corrin freezes, head tilted to the side like a snake watching a rat bustle about before going through with the kill. "I can't. I can't _and_ I won't."

She purses her lips, hand running against the side of the table. "I'm sorry?"

"I am not leading Syrenet into Chicago. I refuse." the bluenette repeats, nails gritting down between the cracks, and Ike places a gentle hand on his shoulder, Marth turning around and snapping at him.

Corrin's eyes are frozen over lakes, and there's about as much warmth as a Himalayan blizzard reflecting in them. "Are you refusing to follow an order, Mr. Lowell?" There's no tone of negotiation in her voice, but one of a stone, solid and firm till a storm comes and tries to knock down its foundations. She, as captain of the cheer squad, remembers a day where bright flowers blew in the breeze, and stupid Lisa Parker refuses to partake in the school cheer at the most important football game of the season. Corrin closes her eyes and squeezes on Lisa's arm - there's pain, there's blood, and Lisa is screaming - Corrin never has to hear from Lisa and her stuck-up southern attitude again. The president wishes to squeeze and squeeze until Marth's pathetic little voice dissipates against the brick walls of the conference room.

"I'll still go to Chicago, but you are not putting this pressure on me. Ike said you gave him your word!" Marth shouts.

"And I did give him my word..." Corrin narrows her gaze, this time viperish eyes darting to Ike who jumps, swallowing heavily. "I made sure that you'd be given proper time to heal from your scars and then when I need you, I expect my commander of the second largest Syrenet squad to come into his role."

"Why me, though? I led the last mission and that ended in disaster!"

"You're not a very good optimist, Mr. Lowell, if you're going to let one slipup act as the protocol for the rest of your time here," Her tone lessens up on the aggressiveness, but only slightly, as Shulk sees the glimmer of daringness sparkling in Corrin's façade, that she's wanting Marth to go off the deep end just a little bit more so she can snap him up in her leviathan jaw. "If you do not lead this mission, I'll terminate your position and can then explain to the nation why you're stepping down. All because you're afraid to step up to the plate." The threat is evident and floats to the core of every individual in the room.

Ike clears his throat. "Madame Corrin, if I may-"

"You may not," the president lifts her head up, sighing in excess, really wanting a drink. "This is a conversation between Marth and I, not you Mr. Forgenson."

Shulk grimaces, wincing inwardly where his neck presses up against his shoulder, biting down on his tongue, and taking a deft leap forward. "Corrin, I think you need to take into consideration that Marth and Ike, but Marth especially, were severely injured in the aftermath of Oklahoma City," Corrin's face remains in impasse, as the blonde is smart enough to not ask for permission, but rather take the empty space up for himself. "He's been through a lot these past couple of weeks, and sometimes throwing him out in the middle of a hurricane like this is not the best strategy."

"Are you suggesting someone take his place as leader?" Corrin's tone, however, makes the question seem challenging, as if she's daring him to speak against her.

"No, I'm not. How about you at the very least lessen his responsibility. He still has command, but perhaps he's the last line of defense rather than on the first. Snake can most definitely fill that position."

Marth's eyes fill with gratitude, and he's never been more happy than in this moment to know a person like Shulk Roberts. He mouths out a silent thank you in the blonde's direction, and the other man nods while Corrin nibbles on her lower lip. She doesn't want to fold in the way everyone is pressuring her, but as she can see from the glances and looks everyone is giving her - Snake's being the most surprising of them all - Corrin relents.

"Fine. Marth, you are in charge of our command centers while Robin and I are away with the city. Snake, Midna, and Mac will be with us for that personal detail, and the rest of you gentleman get to make sure home base doesn't blow up," Corrin tilts her head to the side. "However, if you guys, being the hooligans you are manage to blow it up instead of some rebel force, I'll give you all a pay raise before handing you all your pink slips."

"What?" Pit jokes, happiness glowing off of his disposition. "You don't trust us?"

"I'm not a betting woman," Corrin doesn't bat an eye, and that is all she says to the matter.

However, as she looks around, she sees that most of the room is still staring at Marth, and the bluenette himself is hunched over, stuck in a world of his own. Ike looks down at his best friend admonishingly, a hand up on his right shoulder, squeezing for comfort. "It sounds good to me," the commander whispers after a few minutes of silence save for a few passing coughs. "I'm up for that."

Corrin taps the folders that she had set out for everyone. "Good to know," she clears her throat. "Now, with the folders in front of you, they detail how long we're staying, what we're trying to accomplish, and several other rules. We only get to enjoy the city after nine, no earlier, and everyone has to be back at base by two. I want this to be as clean as possible. If there are any harassment incidents that seem unrelated to a rebel cause, you tell the Chicago police force," Corrin settles her shoulders back. "I only want to be in the news for our good works that Syrenet is giving the city. Nothing else."

Midna flips through a few pages, face brightening at every other possible word. "Madam President, one question."

"And what would that be?"

"Any regulations on us drinking?"

Corrin smiles at that, as she's a fond and avid drinker herself. Link Collins's words echo in her head, " _Great, a drunk politician,"_ and she blocks out the rest, her face momentarily scrunching up. However, as she looks in Midna's expression, she sees something reluctant within her body behavior, as if the redhead is being reminded about a time long before where alcohol had gotten her into a lot of trouble. "Drink to your heart's content, _but_ do not cause a problem or I'll see it myself any of you never wish to have another drink again."

Midna does a fist pump to herself, eliciting an eye roll from her boss, and a giggle within Mac's gut. However, then she makes a soft coo in her throat, eyes glancing over to the secret service agent. "Wait, then that means Mac can't join in on our fun."

"Why not?" Ike asks, crossing his arms over his chest, and Corrin's reminded that the muscular commander has an appetite for beer bottles and their shiny caps. She laughs to herself. She's surrounded by drunks who are perhaps way worse than her.

Mac blushes up to his neck, tugging at the collar of his dress shirt. "Alcohol has never been quite my style since my college years. It's lucky for everyone though, because if everyone else is drunk off their rocker, you get me to act as the brawn of the operation! I'm quite the adept fighter. And I can also drive everyone around, so I expect people to pay for my gas money." His smirk causes everyone around the room to laugh.

Lucas raises his hand on his pedestal, and Corrin's heart for a split second breaks, as she's reminded of a time, one from forever ago with a babe in her arms and Cloud's smiling, he's smiling and she's smiling, and the child vanishes like a plume of smoke. "Lucas?"

"What am I to do while everyone is out partying at night?"

Shulk looks down at his AI Unit with a warm smile. "You'll be helping Pit keep the home base up to speed. I imagine with seven drunk men and women clamoring around, we're likely to break something."

Corrin lets the group share their familiarities and their fun, because the president is focused on ahead to a castle of ashes, where she can see the ruined flag rise out of the crumbling ruin and she's to climb the mound and claim the tutelage to herself. As her gaze passes over everyone sharing in their conversations, for the first time in quite awhile - though it has been too long for her to recall when was the first time she ever saw Syrenet as a family rather than a group of messed up college dropouts - there's a sense of love and enjoyment wafting from the group.

She only wishes that Cloud would be here to see it all instead of probably rotting at the bottom of a trash can. That's a place where her husband does not belong.

The president's face falls, and Robin takes that opportunity to give her undivided attention towards the fellow silverette. Snake stops the sentence he'd been saying halfway through, scowling, and turning in tune to Midna and Mac's conversation, the secret service agent once again flushing as brightly as Roy's hair. The vice president waves a hand in front of her comrade's face. "Are you okay?" she asks gently.

Corrin blinks, as if she's being taken out of a dream, and smiles though Robin sees that it is full of fakery. "I'm- I'm fine. What's up?"

"Could I show what I asked you about earlier?" Robin prods, eliciting Corrin to raise an eyebrow at the secrecy. She's known her vice president to be quite gentle in her manner and approach, but never timid or soft, especially that.

"Uh... I mean, sure. Will it take long?"

"No, it shouldn't," the other woman assures her. She whistles loudly to disrupt the rest of the chatter going around the table, and does nothing more than motion for Pit. The technician's eyebrows shoot up to the top of his head, along with his smile and jubilance, before bounding after the silverette who disappears inside another section of the White House. More silence passes over the group, and Shulk leans back up against the wall, hooking a thumb through a buttoned gap of his shirt.

He's always found Robin to be a damsel, but not necessarily one in distress. With her skirts and long dresses hitched at the ankle, the vice president gives off the look as if she's arriving late to a ball, and mark her words, does not want to become some Cinderella knock-off. Shulk titters a laugh at the thought. The blonde views everything from afar when it comes to his politician bosses. He has no prerogative to get attached, as that'd only spell perfect and downright horrible trouble for everyone if he did.

Robin and Pit only disappear for a few minutes, and the time ticks by with the monotonous ringing of the clock in the corner, which Corrin also hears Lucas cluck his tongue in rhythm to. The technician bustles back in carrying a box, one that's quite heavy and large as it seems he is struggling with it by the depletion of steady breaths and the fact Pit's hands do not link around either side. Ike helps his friend with it, and when the box clunks down on the table, it rattles inside as if each there are separate pieces crammed together.

Shulk leans forward from his perch, and Corrin's subtlety in her movements have changed from curious to standoffish. Robin quickly follows suit back into her spot and lets the human desire of knowledge do the rest.

"What's in the box?" Mac asks, biting on the cuticle of his thumb.

"Something," Pit teases.

"Like what?" Marth snorts, entertaining the jest.

"Something cool," Robin adds, and at this point Corrin is standing there with her hands bunched up. She's one to have a good laugh or chuckle around the campfire, but this preschooler attitude is starting to tick her off.

Roy groans and bangs his head against the table, causing the president to smile. They share in the same reciprocals of frustrated emotion.

"Open it up." Ike urges, and Pit is then ripping the cardboard box open with his bare hands. Pieces of Styrofoam fly out like a winter wonderland, a smile stretching across Lucas's face. A few cusses come from the technician's mouth, which turns Mac's face scarlet once more, before Pit has finished tearing the box into a pile of scraps and shreds. Cardboard Box #1 is no more. He motions towards Ike to do the honors of reaching inside. The bluenette grimaces momentarily, and reaches in. Everyone leans in to see what it is.

He pulls out a cylindrical object no longer than a canister of spray paint long, a pallid coat of paint decorating the object all the way around. A headlamp is placed at one end, and a bright red button on the other. Corrin raises an eyebrow as Ike begins pulling out four more and sets them all up in a line. Each object is designed and colored the same exact way, and it reminds the president of a row of grenades, though she has no idea where the comparison comes from exactly.

"What are those?" she asks. "They look like car batteries."

"They're much more than that," Robin smiles. She looks at the rest of the group, motioning her hands in a wide arc as she speaks. "For those of you who don't know, I went to college for a masters degree in engineering. However, at the near end of my sixth year getting a degree, the political world seen became my calling and I left the idea of being an engineer or builder of some sorts behind," a twinkle glows in the vice president's eyes, which makes Shulk smirk. He's never seen Robin so happy before. "One day, about a year ago, Pit calls me and lets me know about this prototype drone he's been working on, but couldn't quite get a few schematics down pact. So, I decided I'd help him and now, a year later, we have these!" she proclaims, and her hands gesture to the five canisters standing on the other end of the table from her side.

Snake rubs his chin. "So... they're just drones? How do they fly?"

"The red button," Pit explains, and pushes down on one of them after he grabbed it in his hand. A low whirring comes from underneath, and out pops a pair of wings from two slits near the headlamp. Both wings look as if they'd been made from glass and reflect sunlight like a dragonfly's wings. Midna marvels at the engineering excellence displayed before her, eyes wide, and it reminds her of day one of FBI boot camp, a time where nothing bothered her, reaching over to pat Robin on the shoulder. Pit hands the object to Shulk who examines it in his hand. "The drone is activated by voice command and will listen to anything you tell it to do. Almost like personal robots, and because our Syrenet suits are too expensive to sell to the masses, these can be more affordable."

"Can they kill anything? Do they have a self defense mechanism anywhere?" Shulk asks, tossing it back and forth.

Robin bites down on her lip, face flushed. "Pit and I haven't worked over that kink yet. They're just little advisory tools."

Corrin grips the end of the table, tapping her fingernails against it. "And what do you plan on doing with them?"

The vice president gives off a look with her face as if she had been caught in the middle of a crowded movie theater naked, her eyebrows furrowed together, eyes wide like a deer in the headlights. "I was going to get with you on that... but because we're here now... I thought we could sell the idea as part of the Chicago plan?"

A spell of silence passes over the group, disturbing enough in fact that Shulk places the drone down on the table. He looks at Corrin and is unable to tell what's going on through his head. He's seen so much, he's seen _her_ do so much and can read the president like a book, but now there's a blank slate. Shulk can tell, as he's not stupid, that the silverette is angry from her small shaped 'o' from her mouth, and the involuntary clenching of her hands, but what she wants to do with her hands is a mystery.

Corrin tilts her head to side, dangerously, and Robin's blood runs to ice. "Did- did I hear that correctly? You want to _sell_ these? And you weren't going to get my permission for it either?"

Robin wishes she could be anywhere else but in the predicament she's in. She closes her eyes and silently counts to ten, as if she's awoken from some nightmare and will be back in her bed, wrapped up in satin silk sheets, but nothing's changed and the entire group is bearing into her with bullets for stares. "I wanted to get permission but-"

Ike sits up and disrupts the flow of action. "Do you have a collective name for them? The drones?"

The vice president's heart elates - bless Ike, oh _bless_ his perfect blue haired soul - and she's forever in his gratitude now. She looks over at Pit, who nods back at her with a grin. "We have," he declares happily. He lets the suspense hang over the room for a moment - Corrin really wants to throttle the smug technician in the throat, and her comrade for that matter, but another time entirely - "As a collaborative decision, we've called these drones to be Robin's Automatic Army."

Everyone except Corrin shares words and sentences with Pit and Robin on the genius sounding name, the ominous part to it, but Corrin cannot get past the fact that her vice president views this, _these_ infernal devices as an army. An army? Her blood flares up with the temperature of a supernova, hands curling into fists, but she keeps her cool. She looks up at the roof as the world is spinning, the world is spinning too fast with the blood roaring in her ears, but Corrin swallows her pride. "It sounds quite nice."

"He and I were tossing back the word Automaton in there instead, 'Robin's Automaton Army', but that sounds ominous, and these things aren't full fledged machines that are body size and talk. It didn't seem like it'd fit," Robin says.

"I'd totally buy something with that name," Mac pipes up, a smile lacing his lips. "I think it's quite cool you and Pit made something like that. Will we get to see a demonstration?"

Corrin wants to jump in and override everyone. _"No!"_ she wants to shout, _"Hell no!"_ but she cannot do it, no matter how hard she tries. Shulk flashes her a look and she can see through him, he can see through her, and he's reading every thought passing by, shaking his head in dissent. He claps his hands and rocks back on forth on his heel.

"Well, as it seems like Corrin does not find it ideal to put them on the market, what if each of us got our own personal droid to keep and that'd be fulfilling enough."

Robin frowns, considering the thought. "I think that could work. If it's alright with Corrin, I mean. It'd be another reason why Syrenet soldiers are just that more superior than any other force around the globe, but it's all up to her." She gives her friend a look, full of puppy dog emotion that is meant to make movie audiences sob, and Corrin feels her heart crumble, only slightly.

"Fine. Roy, Ike, Marth, Shulk, Mac, Midna, and Pit can all have their own drones. But no more or I'll smash them all to bits," she warns. "I-"

More applause drowns out the rest of what Corrin says afterwards, with Robin trying to add something else as well, but Snake throws his arms around the vice president in a hug, Marth and Ike slapping Pit on the back for all it's worth. Corrin scowls, not joining the rest in some false celebration. She looks over her broken group that somehow will lead a mission to Chicago for her administration's future. The president finds herself stopping to look at Lucas.

The normally cheerful AI Unit is sitting on his disk, unlike his earlier position which had been standing up and cheering with everyone else about the possibilities of a new addition to the Syrenet team. He has his arms curled up at his sides, and a frown is plastered on his face. Corrin purses her lips at the look of Shulk's AI Unit, but doesn't say anything.

She wonders if the look on Lucas's face is the same on Fiora's from when she knew she had sent the youthful wife and mother to her doom.

What's done is done and can no longer be rectified, no matter how bad one may feel.

And Corrin Etch is feeling pretty bad.

* * *

Roy stretches his arms wide on the front lawn of the White House, the rest of the group breaking for a gourmet lunch at Robin's behest. He's tired and wants nothing more than to curl up the fireplace and enjoy a warm cup of cocoa. The sun is hot and quite painful against his exposed and pale arms, and he's reminded of days underneath a lamp that swings on a weak chain, flies dancing between the bulbs, and the man's gruff finger is poking to his chest. There's so much blood, he's unsure how much of it is, and then the world collapses when he's told that this strenuous two week torture session has been nothing more than some convoluted and sick FBI test.

The redhead wants to be happy for Robin and Pit, he really does, but from looking at Corrin's reaction throughout the entire session, he's unsure. An unfamiliar taste lies on his tongue, making it feel clouded as if he's been poisoned, and no matter how much happiness he endures, it'll never be enough. He's proud of Pit, though, as he's heard the stories and fables from everyone else in the headquarters building that the dude with white wings stuck onto his back is some genius in programming and designing. However, when looking at the Syrenet suits lining the wall, Roy's reminded that these designs weren't originally Pit's own work, but the founder back in England who's retired from the public eye, and now Roy's elation is drowning underneath a wave of disbelief.

However, now that he's staring these drones in the face, Roy can see that something glints in Pit's eyes and there's genuine talent in those hands of his. Now, if Pit could just fire a gun the way he holds a welding torch, everything will be a one hundred percent complete. Roy snorts at the thought though. When he was given a gun for the first time in his life, no older than fourteen, he'd been afraid of the loud noises and the kickback as should any other be.

A shadow crosses over his line of slight, blocking Roy's spot in the sun. He furrows his eyebrows together. "Hey, can you move? You're blocking my sunlight, and these rays feel quite nice."

"I don't think that's how you talk to authority, young man," a voice says, and Roy really wishes he didn't say that.

"I'm sorry Mr. Karlo, I didn't-"

"Just say please and I'll move," the FBI director admonishes gently. "I also told you to not call me that. I'm Snake, and Snake only. We're all workers here, no need for the formalities."

Roy huffs a tuff of hair out of his eyes. "Please, _Snake,_ move."

"Better," Snake grins. "May I sit?"

The redhead cranes his neck up and looks around the lawn. There are a few customers bustling in and out for a tour, but there's hardly anyone out in the emerald lane besides a few security guards. The ones holding sniper rifles reminds him of Link Collins with that chipped grin, the cigar, a boot in his face, and that deadly knife. "There's no one else around, so... sure."

Snake plops down next to Roy rather unceremoniously, and something cracks which may or may not have been the older man's tailbone. He curses to himself, rubbing around the injured area. Roy tries his hardest to not stifle a laugh, as he's already been disrespectful once before and surely Snake is a man to not tolerate repeat offenders.

"What was for lunch?" Roy asks, after a few moments of tranquility passing between them, no sounds except for faraway shoes clattering against gravel or the rustle of a tree nearby.

"Barbecue. You missed Pit slip and fall on some spilled sauce because Midna decided to play a little trick on him," Snake grits his teeth. "That girl sometimes, I swear Roy, she drives me crazy."

"You're the one who hired her," he reminds him.

"Trust me, I beat myself up at night over that all the time."

The two men laugh, and Roy looks away momentarily, bothered, but he's unsure as to why. There shouldn't be any bad blood between them, he thinks in his head, should there? He mulls over what he knows about Snake, and he finds out that the list is quite small. 1, Snake is a good sniper. 2, he promises to save his fellow soldiers when in trouble. 3, he's totally in love with Robin, everyone from miles around can sense that in him though the man swears he's not. 4, the FBI director for some reason wants to talk to Roy Arcadia.

"What do you want?" he asks, and there's no aggressiveness in his tone, and he's trying to keep his cool and calm. Roy remembers the nights in the hospital where he's alone, and save for Ike and Pit's cold encounter, Midna is warm and embracing, but nothing else and no one else makes an effort to show up.

"I'm here to apologize..." Snake says mysteriously.

"For what?" Roy knows exactly what the FBI director is going to say, but there's an innateness deep inside his mind that has to have the words uttered, just to let him have this fraction of a second where the redhead is on top of the world and winning all the games that are there to be played.

The other man runs his hand through the grass, hair blowing in the breeze. "For never seeing you in the hospital," Snake admits. "I'm sure you've already talked at length with everyone else about it, and I know Midna came by to see you, and probably gave some good excuse to cover my ass..." he looks off. "Had I just been a few seconds faster, maybe you wouldn't have ended up with hurt legs and partial PTSD over the city Boston."

"Snake..." Roy's voice is impossibly soft, eyes looking at Snake full of hurt.

A laugh comes from the brunette, full of emotions that are the complete antithesis of genuine happiness, but more of a bitter snarl. "I don't get emotional, Roy, not often, but for some reason I feel so damn troubled about it. I couldn't do it. I've been at this job for far too long, probably since you've been in diapers, and there's been way too many workers and agents of mine that died simply because of my incompetence to arrive just in time. Do you know what it feels like to let people down and _yet_ still be revered as this mighty savior to them? To the same people you failed?"

Roy's mouth feels as if it's been stuffed with cloth, unable to move his jaw or tongue without making a complete fool of himself. Syllables stutter out, slurred and broken when there's usually a bottle of tequila in his belly. The redhead has a pit of sour acid rip through his stomach, and for everything he's said to Midna, for everything he's barked at Ike and Pit, and for everything he's shouted at Shulk, a pain rests in the hole the acid has created, and it hits him. Roy Arcadia has been a complete asshole the entire time he's been back from Boston, and the blonde's words are truer than any of the banal bullshit the man has uttered, ever.

"I can't say I do, Snake..."

"It's exhausting, downright sucks all the life out of me at times, but I don't give up because I love this country and the place I live in needs leaders and directors who have the backbone to continue working with the mess presented in front of them," Snake rants, hands clenched and unclenched, ears tinted a zealous pink. "There's never been a challenge I stared at directly in the face and thought I couldn't do it, but time and time again somewhere along the line I fall short."

"Everyone fails at things, but I-" Roy should just shut up at this point, there's no support he could give to the director that people haven't already given him a thousand times before.

"It never gets easier, you know." Snake says suddenly, jumping points of the conversation faster than Corrin's facial expressions.

Roy furrows in his eyebrows. "What doesn't?"

"Syrenet. Working with Corrin. Working _for_ Corrin," the FBI director elaborates. "She's going to ask a lot from you, and there's nothing else you can do but try and do it to your full ability. People get on me for making them shut up instead of trying to have her eat crow, but it's the truth. What happened in Boston, while terrible, was child's play..." he pauses, letting his words sink in. "Chicago will be an entirely different ball game. Boston had been nothing more than simply another FBI mission. Now try and persuade a city of a million or more people to buy into a government service that has been proven to be a failure beforehand in previous cities, make a small council of eleven try to get that to function, and not have rebels who want to destroy you get a chance to kill everyone while you're at it? I've done way too many of these Syrenet missions since I joined Corrin's team, but they still have me toss and turn."

The redhead is stunned by the turn of the discussion, and he does nothing but sit there and listen. That's all he's done his entire life. Sit there and listen. He listens to his father berate his mother, he listens to their screams as they fight in the living room, he listens to the gun sounds and his mother's sobs, yet he never stands up to help anyone. Roy has his ears open while Link wails into him on his own stupidity - "How could you be so damn stupid?" Link howls into the redhead's ears with a ferocity that threatens to split him open - but he's unable to move an inch or say anything but a stupid joke back as the means to defend himself. It's quite the confidence boost.

"Why is working with Corrin so difficult? By doing things we essentially can't?"

Snake looks at Roy, and he jumps out of his skin, seeing an entire history of problems radiating through the director's eyes. Roy sees war, he sees famine, he sees a heart drenched in blood fall into a pool of tar, he sees Snake rip a knife out of a man's throat while trying to reach Corrin who's being held hostage at gunpoint, and he sees the end of the world reflected in those mahogany eyes. "Has anyone so far told you about Fiora?"

Roy mulls over the details in his head. "Not much. I know she was Shulk's wife and that she died on a mission to Detroit for Syrenet."

The FBI director leans back into the grass, arms underneath his head. "Fiora Roberts was one of the most amazing human beings I've ever met. At the time of her mission, Fiora had been quite along a surrogate pregnancy that she and Shulk managed to snag months earlier. Detroit was falling apart at the hinges and Corrin needed the best person in her arsenal that was readily at her disposal to lead it," he goes onto his right side so he could stare straight at Roy, eyes unreadable. "Shulk had been occupied with some mission in Mexico, and everyone else Corrin would've rather picked was also busy, compromised, or dead. What would you've done? Would you have let a woman with a possible happy future go off, or let an entire city collapse and presumably have worse ramifications down the line?"

"I- I would've gone myself instead, I-" Roy begins to answer.

"It's not that simple, Roy. Corrin didn't want to send Fiora, but she had no other choice. Detroit collapses in on itself anyways, with or without Fiora's involvement, and now it's the reason why there's a country that isn't Canada on our border. Fiora went and tried to help stabilize peace. Shulk comes back from his Mexico mission to his wife being declared missing. Three weeks later, he finds his wife mutilated and turned into some robot in a Detroit sewer, their unborn child dead as well, and he wants to blame it on Corrin. No one, no one at all would have ever in a million years, foreseen that outcome. How could they? Fiora knew what was at stake and went anyways."

Roy's blood runs cold. "I never knew that..."

Snake shrugs. "Not that many people do. It's why Shulk is the broken china doll that he is, but I wouldn't blame him," the FBI director gets up from his spot on the grass and dusts his knees off, dirt and single emerald blades falling to the ground. He turns to walk away, tossing out one last statement at Roy. "Fiora died because she tried serving her country and her president the best she could. What do you think will happen to you if things end up like Boston again, but there's no one to help you? Will you meet a possibly more gruesome fate than Fiora Roberts, or will you rise to the occasion and make everyone who ever doubted you surprised to see you alive?"

With that frigid note, Snake Karlo, the head director of the FBI, walks off and leaves Roy stuck in his spot, completely shell shocked. A cold sweat trickles down the redhead's forehead, and his hands and feet feel heavy as cinderblocks.

The sunlight no longer feels warm like it did a few moments ago.

* * *

Shulk's left hand is cold from gripping the half-full beer he took from the refrigerator, waiting for the elevator back at the Syrenet headquarters to lower down to the main basement floor. The doors ding open with a musical flourish, and the blonde steps out of the cube. The pathway to the main bedroom for he, Marth, Ike, and Pit is wide open from earlier in the day when they all left, and Shulk steps in before slamming it shut.

In the middle of the room is the same briefing table where Shulk once spilled the beans on the Boston mission to Roy - the memory stays frozen in time inside Shulk's mind, and he wants that piece of time to vanish away forever into blurred nothingness - and on it is an AI Unit's disk. Shulk freezes momentarily when looking at it, the beer in his hands almost crashing to the floor. That couldn't be Ness's, could it? He shakes his head. That'd be impossible.

That disk has a bullet hole in it, and besides, Shulk recalls throwing it in the trash after he destroyed it from Corrin's orders. His heart begins to beat steadily again, as that disk must've been Lucas's. He sets his beer down and presses the center of the disk. For a second it burns a bright neon blue, as if it's starting up, before shutting off. The commander of Alpha Squad recoils away from it, frowning. He presses it again and gets the same result. A brief turn-on, and then the light disappears. Shulk sighs.

"Lucas? What's wrong?" he asks aloud. No response. Shulk looks at the ceiling, praying a silent plea. "I know you can hear me."

An image on the disk blurs into focus. Lucas is sitting on his disk, no taller than a foot, huddled into a ball where his knees are hugged up to his chest. "Go away Shulk. I don't want to talk about it."

The commander frowns slightly, taking a swig of the bear. He downs one sip and then hesitates. Him being drunk for what seems to be heading into the direction of a fatherly talk would be best well kept sober. Shulk pushes the bottle away from him, so far where it clinks against the wall where his eyes linger on the refrigerator where he can simply grab another one. He resists, before sitting on the floor so his eyes are level with Lucas's that dance away from his the moment they catch each other.

"What is it? You know you can't talk to me. You're my best friend, bud!"

Lucas's eyes fill with hope, a sound hope and a brightness that hadn't been there a moment before. "Really?"

"I've known you the longest," Shulk explains. "That near about qualifies it. You hear my thoughts and I hear yours, so we're practically joined at the hip!" A goofy smile catches onto the blonde's face, and he's never felt more like a dad than in this single moment.

"We're like Siamese twins!" Lucas elaborates, face twisting into a scowl as he completely and totally butchers the pronunciation of the word, adding a few extra n's and s's in spots that there are only seven letters and not fifteen.

"So, what's got you upset?"

The AI Unit looks away abashedly, a blush settling on his bluish cheeks. Shulk wonders for a moment what it must be like as Lucas, to never truly interact with any human and have no possible memory recollection of life before being turned into computer data. It's a fleeting thought, and one he wishes he hadn't expounded any into, as he's blanching and wanting the beer more than ever before.

"Back at the conference, when Vice President Robin and Pit revealed those drones... their... army," Lucas spits the word out with poison, an anger that draws Shulk back as he's never seen this side of the cheerful and bubbly AI Unit he's known to come and love. "I felt an emotion I've never felt before. One I know that hadn't been programmed into me."

"And what would that have been?"

"Jealousy," the AI admits.

Lucas crumbles up a section of his shirt as he says this, twirling it this way and that like a curtain. He's telling the truth, another programming input that means he'll always say what is on his mind no matter what, and that has gotten him into a lot of trouble. He's unable to explain what jealousy felt like, instead that it hurt and burned his inner core of cells and digital lines.

"Jealous?" Shulk raises an eyebrow. "At those drones that all they can do is fly and act as a flashlight? Mind you they also can't speak..."

"They looked cool!" the AI Unit tries for a reason, and then can't, stuck with the fact he's being unlike what the gods of his design programmed him to be.

"None of them have personalities," the commander reminds his digital friend. "They also don't have individual names! I'd say you're ten times better than them."

Lucas looks at Shulk, and for some reason the blonde feels like he wants to cry, an emotion he's felt before when in secrecy no one has told him to feel it. He likes it, actually, Lucas does, doing stuff that people tell him not to do. It makes him feel important when people only ever want to help him because they need a job done and never because they want to spend some time and company with an actually genuine and joyous person. However, Shulk isn't like that, Lucas knows this deep down yet he sometimes feels like it isn't true. Shulk has stayed up past midnight, on days where he needs sleep, just to talk about Lucas's apple orchard or his rose garden and the waterfall he's discovered while hiking on his time off inside the expansive world that'll never die all trapped up in the AI Unit's disk.

"Will-" the boy hiccups the question, "Will you ever replace me with one of those drones?"

Shulk makes a face as if he's been stabbed. "Why would you ever think I'd do something like that?"

"Because you said it yourself," Lucas averts his gaze to the floor, focusing on one particularly dirty tile underneath Shulk's feet. "You suggested that you, Marth, Ike, Midna, Roy, Pit, and Snake each get one... and if they're just gonna be other companions, why would you need me?"

The commander almost falls over, his AI Unit's words riveting brain deep against his skull, echoes of an injured whale against an abyss's walls that sting and haunt his days forever and ever. "Lucas... don't you _ever,_ and I mean, _ever_ think something like that again. You're Lucas Dio, the AI Unit to the head commander of the head squad of Syrenet. Do you have any idea how important of a title and role that is?"

"It's... big?" Lucas hesitates, biting down on his lip and Shulk's heart melts entirely.

"That's beyond big!" Shulk emphasizes, moving his arms out behind him in a huge arc. "That's bigger than this entire country, Lucas, and we have quite the big country," he leans in as if he's going to kiss Lucas's forehead. "You're my ride or die guy, Lucas, and I'd never in a million years dream of replacing you. Okay? Nod with me," Lucas reciprocates the action, and Shulk smiles. "Good. Now, get some rest. We leave tomorrow and I don't want to have a sluggish AI Unit in my head mewling over wanting coffee and donuts, okay?"

Lucas smiles. "Okay!"

Shulk gets back to his feet and groans, creaking out the dust in his joints, as good god he is way too old to be crouching down to what are practically children at this age. He goes and grabs his beer, which is oddly lukewarm now and tastes fuzzy in the back of his jaw. He goes over to his bed and begins pulling down the comforter and sheets.

Looking over, he sees that Lucas is still sitting there, face pensive as if he's thinking. "What?" Shulk says aloud. "Did I not convince you enough?"

The AI Unit shakes his head. "No, I'm just thinking."

"Oh? What about? Anything I won't be able to understand?"

"I'm feeling lonely. On top of being jealous."

"Lonely? Why lonely?"

Shulk feels as if Lucas's gaze, though full of cheer and the brightness he remembers, as this is the same blonde kid who asked Roy Arcadia if he could sing to him in Spanish after all, pierces through him and burns down to the very core, painful and antagonizing, like Fiora's final stare before he shuts the coffin over her and lets her dying screams reverberate into the pallor corpse lit night.

"I miss Ness," Lucas chews on the inside of his cheek. He sees Shulk freeze, his best friend is frozen with one hand gently holding onto a bed sheet, the other clutching the stupid beer.

The commander's heart stops and slowly starts to pick up speed. He turns away from Lucas, unable to hide his shame. "I miss him too, Lucas. I'm sorry about that too."

Lucas doesn't say anything except a slight hum of acknowledgement. Shulk downs the rest of his beer and tosses the bottle all the way across the room. The AI Unit cannot help but wince when the sound of shattering glass and a string of curse words is the reward for the commander's drunk antics, but Lucas shouldn't expect anything different at this point.

He watches his best friend get underneath the covers, turn the light off by his bedside, mutter a half-hearted good night, and go away to a state full of dreams.

The AI Unit leans in, rubbing his chin, and for some reason can only doubt that Shulk meant that he missed Ness.

He's finding it hard to believe it.

And that scares him.

* * *

 **And there we are lads and ladies! Chapter #19: Robin's Automatic Army. This took me a little bit longer than it should have, but this was one of those chapters where I genuinely enjoyed every single line. Back to another nice medium in word count as well, I realize. Anywho, there is quite a lot to discuss and me to ask, because you know me and my forever ending string of questions. I can feel it now, in my head, the, "Oh my god Paradigm just shut the f*** up and let the shitty chapter die..." (I've gotten two of those before lol, my AN's are way too long I suppose)**

 **First thing, I realized that the Robin's Automatic Army scene was 4.2k long, so it was literally half of the entire chapter and I can't believe I let that get so long, I just must've loved writing everyone's interactions. I'm also surprised at how much I enjoyed writing inside Corrin and Shulk's mind with their thoughts going quite back and forth. I can see myself weaving an intricate staircase inside Corrin's mind of every single journey her tangents will go and where we'll end up. What do you think of Robin and Pit's inventions? Why would Corrin be presumably worried about them, and do you think they will actually serve any purpose?**

 **Then when I jumped into Snake and Roy, I didn't turn out for that to be too depressing (how'd I do Seth? Is Snake good here or is he too melodramatic, oh god I'm gonna be stuck up on this) like holy hell that was depressing. We've learned the truth on Fiora's death and now it seems like Shulk and Corrin take the blame when in truth it isn't their fault to begin with. With Snake apologizing to Roy, that's been everyone besides Marth who has talked at some length with Roy on not appearing in the hospital? Which one of these conversations detailing that topic was your favorite? What do you think you would've done in Corrin's position with the Detroit debacle and sending in Fiora? I'm interested in everyone's thoughts.**

 **Lastly, that Lucas and Shulk scene. I realized that I've missed writing Lucas for so long in this story, and for being a main character with the four names, I realize he hasn't been featured all that much, and that shall be changed. Writing Shulk as a dad to Lucas is also making me want to cry and smile at the same time. Seth has been nailing the head with Lucas and those predictions... but I digress. Do you think Lucas will turn on Shulk or anyone else because it's his programming becoming corrupted, or that he's forced to turn a deaf ear? Will Shulk actually confess to Lucas that he destroyed his AI best friend?**

 **Man, we covered a lot of ground this chapter! Set everything up nicely for the arc finale, Chapter #20: Chicago's Greeting! Any predictions on what shall happen next chapter? I have quite a few things set up, and I think I'm going to try and make it the longest chapter so far (got to beat a 9.6k chapter, I can do it!) so there'll be a lot to dive into. I've got a few more questions pertaining to the end of the arc, but it'll be that chapter I do it for. Please review! I'm asking a lot, I know, but it really builds up to great discussions and depth of my material that I've never gone as deep as this before. Chapter #20 will be out probably no later than around the 22nd or so, which gives me plenty of time to write it. Thanks for being amazing readers! Love you all! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	20. Chapter 20: Chicago's Greeting

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #20: Chicago's Greeting. Man oh man look at where we are ladies and gents, we're capping the grand two O. I haven't dreamed of reaching this point in the story or from the amount of fun it has been giving me and the surge of newfound confidence I've gotten from it. This story will forever be marked as my highlight in my eyes though from another standpoint in terms of views and somesuch other numbers, it pales in comparison to others sadly. Last chapter was mightily long as I hadn't expected it to be, and I think this chapter will somersault into 10k territory as well, almost like a Season finale of a TV show if I think about it correctly. Review replies!**

 **valentiia- Though your review is for Ch#3 and I have no idea when or if you'll see this, I still am compelled to reply! I am glad you find this story fun, because truth be told this is quite the dramatic and heavy telling piece meaning there's not too many laughs to be shared. I hope you stay tuned up to the point where you can read this reply! It makes my heart swell to hear that your resurgence of reading fanfictions in this fandom lands on this hidden spot and piece that so luckily manages to star Roy in some capacity. :D**

 **SeththeGreat- Yeah... sorry I got hung up on that. I always value the opinions of my readers and I guess I take it to far and all I can do is shrug my shoulders. However, glad to know it was well written. I've tried making it so that Snake is the main voice of reason, even moreso than Robin because unlike the vice president, he's been in war scenarios and there's a lot more he can spiel on, say unlike Shulk as Snake has his head firmly screwed in place.**

 **Ecenema- What I meant was that you're a new face to the review section, since I can't actually see your face as your reading this story. Aww, your words mean so much. I really try putting my heart into all I can and I hope that this actually can be something I can end up doing professionally one day if I kick myself in the keister hard enough. And don't worry, there's a hella lot more suspense heading your way. Just you wait.**

 **CrashGuy01- Well, I never got to hear your lack of competence cries against Pit in Icarus Chronicle... because he bested Roy and his brother and even Shulk in the end a few times with that piece, though I can understand why... I digress too much. There's** ** _absolutely_** **nothing wrong with Corrin, she's a perfectly harmless human being who just wishes the wrong feelings on the right enemies.**

 **Metroid-Killer- I wouldn't feel bad in saying you're ten thousand percent wrong. Sorry. And then are other plot points (no, I won't say which) that you hit quite on the nail or durn close near it so damn you and quit guessing correctly. Make assumptions that seem logical but in your heart know are wrong! Grrr... lol**

 **Thanks for the reviews you guys, it's been a long time since I had four for one chapter, as I feel I've scared everyone else off and away. Anywho, enjoy the chapter, #20: Chicago's Greeting.**

* * *

Roy knows, as he's seen countless paid adverts from telemarketers who seem like they really don't want people to live, that being on a plane is the safest place for man yet beyond dangerous where a harmless glass bottle could fall onto the aisle floor and that somehow cause the plane to fall apart. So, currently half an hour into the flight from D.C to Chicago, the redhead sits in his chair all the while clenching the armrests till his knuckles turn blue. The plane is silent for the most part, the pilot up front with Corrin, Robin, and Snake in the cockpit as they discuss politics and important stuff - Roy calls it politics and important stuff because their conversations do not affect him - so, there's three occupants already preoccupied.

Shulk's crammed himself into a corner in the back of the plane with a book in his hands, which Roy finds amusing as usually it is the Beta commander clutching a novel, but this time the blonde picks up a Stephen King novel and reads away. Ike and Marth are in front of Roy a few seats up situated around a table playing poker, and the redhead can tell from the way Marth constantly groans and leans back in his seat that he's losing such a streak. Pit is further up than them by the cockpit door, fiddling with Robin's machines. The brunette's brow is glistening with perspiration as he cranks away with mechanisms and numbers that make Roy's head swim, and Mac watches him intently, though he steels a glance at another passenger on occasion, as if he's afraid they'll strike.

Everyone except for Midna is doing something that Roy's not bothered with. The lady in question is over in her own seat facing the back aisle, and her gaze is directed primly - predatorily if Roy's opinion is something of merit - at him. His skin feels clammy and the armrests wrap around his own with leather vices. He catches himself looking back at her with just as much intensity, because he has all the right in the world to look away and perhaps watch the clouds. However, the fluffy balls of white are not nearly interesting enough, unlike the gal sat thirty feet away from him.

She gets up, and Roy's body tenses. Midna eyes him the entire walk, which surprisingly gets Mac's attention, the secret service agent scowling as wide as the Grand Canyon. Roy notices this as well, and sighs heavily. All he is doing on this trip so far is existing and he's causing more trouble than what he can anticipate. The redhead can see it now, with a drunken Mac getting into a fight with him, and since Roy's confidence in punching the lights out of new secret service agents wears thin, he can see dirt being in his face one evening.

Midna plops down on the chair that is facing him, and Roy swears that the plane tips forward some.

The FBI agent sucks on her lower lip, the sound filling the silence, which causes Roy to flush a bright red at the implications. "What are you staring at me for?" she asks.

"What are _you_ looking at me for?" Roy prods back at her, folding his arms. "You've been eyeballing me since we took off."

"You're more interesting than watching Shulk read," Midna smirks. "He's boring."

"I agree with her a full ten thousand percent!" the commander in question shouts, consenting with her opinion. "This book sucks."

"Then why are you reading it?"

There's no response. Roy shifts in his chair uncomfortably, and there's something about her gaze that pierces right through him. He's frowning, as the stare is familiar and it is one he should know but it cannot come back to him. He recalls his thoughts about Midna at the bar the night Cloud went missing. The redhead puts all his known pieces together and there's nothing clear coming out of all of it. He sits forward.

"I know you from somewhere and it's bothering me..." he whispers. Midna lifts her head up and begins to laugh. Roy furrows his eyebrows together. "What?" Roy asks angrily.

"It took you that long to figure it out?"

"Figure what out?"

Midna sits forward and gives Roy an all knowing smirk. "Think back to your senior year high school days, _Mr._ Arcadia," she says the title mockingly, causing the other redhead to roll his eyes, then her words sink in. "For all of high school you only ever ask out one girl. Her amber hair is the most amazing thing you've ever seen, and she rejects you because she's already seeing someone. From that point forward, you sit in the passenger seat as that girl moves and you never see her again up until Boston... who am I reminding you of?"

Roy feels the answer sitting on his tongue like poison, thick and viscous where no syllables dare speak save for the executioner's blade. "I- I don't-"

"Does the name Midna Veracruz mean something to you?"

It hits him. A thought with the force of sledgehammer swings into Roy's stomach. His mouth drops. It's a rainy day at school, and Roy's soaked down to his shoes. The umbrella in his hand is crumpled up and twisted by the wicked winds of a winter that is eternally freezing. Prom is two weeks away, and his father has placed a hand on his shoulder, looking at him deep in the eyes. He's told to go get a lass and invite her to the dance, a dance where high schoolers let foolish love fill their hearts and then the world may freeze in time. Roy thinks about it the entire walk to school, and the storm clouds roll in. Now, as he's stuck in the school's foyer waiting for the bell to ring, his eyes light up and look upon Midna Veracruz. Stunning, effortlessly popular by her good looks and a parent tag team who are business executives for Silicon Valley corporations... she's the dream girl for the guy who's dreams don't go that far. He builds the courage, his feet feel like cement, and when she shows him the engagement ring that a boy from a town over has given her, Roy's rain shower transforms into a hurricane.

He looks at Midna, eyes swimming in an emotion akin to confusion. "We went to high school together?"

She nods. "You and I spoke maybe seven words to each other before you asked me out to prom. I met a guy at a party about three years earlier our freshman year, and he had proposed to met the night before you asked me for the dance. We'd get married after graduation, and be one of those newlywed couples who'd beat the odds," Midna scoffs, biting her cheek. "I was so stupid as a girl. I changed my last name from Veracruz to Nye, and now I'm Midna Nye."

"How'd the marriage turn out?"

Midna's face twists into one of sadness. "A pretty dream, but nothing more. Just a dream. Let's just say my husband believed I should look like a runway model who'd succumb to every sexual need he wanted. I dropped out of that marriage only a few years in when his true colors came into play... but it looks like his habits have followed me."

"His habits?"

"It's hard to explain."

Roy looks out the window for the first time on the plane flight. It'd be about another hour and a half till they'd land in Chicago, and the Syrenet Midwest project for the second time around would begin. His eyes glance over Midna's hands. "I swear you had a wedding ring on there once..."

"No. That was just you imaging things," she smirks. Midna runs her hands down the armrests. "After divorcing the sleazebag, I flew under the radar and stayed in Philadelphia for a few years. Served as a waitress in some bar, and then my father talks to me about maybe joining the military. I found that to be an excellent idea, but plans turned elsewhere, and here I am as an FBI agent... where even then you and I didn't cross paths..." the agent looks at Roy wistfully, lips slightly parted. She scoffs. "I'm so stupid to even wonder-"

"You're not stupid..." he consoles her, reaching out and placing a hand gently on her knee. "Wonder what?"

Midna looks at him and he's stunned by the brightness of her eyes. "What if I ended my engagement to the illustrious Mr. Nye and stay as Mrs. Arcadia. If I went to the prom with you, maybe I wouldn't live a marriage that was all lies and full of abuse..."

"If you and I married, then there's probably no way either of us would be sitting on this plane with Syrenet. You wouldn't be an FBI agent, and I'd be a lot less than what I already am now."

She looks away, gaze going to the floor. Midna gives a slight laugh. "Yeah. Yeah, you're probably right..." she gets up from her seat. "If you'll excuse me." the FBI agent walks away from their seats and Roy watches her slowly as she heads towards the bathroom on the other end of the plane.

When Roy turns back, he looks up and he catches Mac look at him. His skin becomes cold with the slickness of sweat as the secret service agent's gaze is the thousand yard stare, but all he sees is fire, a spear drenched in fire with blood splattered on the windowsills. Roy looks away, disturbed, and shudders. When he looks back, Mac is facing Pit and watching the rest of the Automatic Army's hardwiring and corrections take place.

The Syrenet employee exhales a long sigh, chewing on his lower lip.

He shuts his eyes. There's no time like the present to get some shuteye.

Roy Arcadia is to dream of his death, of the world's death, and of the possible life he wishes should it be only him and Midna come the end.

* * *

The woman in the bathroom mirror sighs. She runs a hand through her hair, unscrewing the lid of a container of blush, the name faded away as she's unable to read it. Midna blinks at her reflection, feeling the sorrow wade through her bones from the shoulders down to her feet. Roy's stunned expression sits in her mind like a stilled frame, frozen forever in time with his parted lips and raised eyebrows. He's quite cute - Midna will never be caught saying this out loud to him, that'd be horrible if he were to find out - when he's confused, but one of those confusions where Roy secretly has an idea in his own head of what's going on around him.

She applies the blush to her cheeks, the tan skin popping out a little bit lighter. Chicago's weather reporters were detailing a sweltering heat wave for the next two weeks, and Midna has had her fair share of experiences dealing with leaving runways and getting hit with a full fledged blast of fire riding the wind, making her appearance more disheveled than orderly.

Midna feels Mac's stare on her, and she can feel through her spine that his stare is more pointed, furious and raging. One look at Snake, and she can understand the conversation going on between both men as her boss more than likely told the secret service agent to back off. She looks down at her body, seeing the ghostly curves of her thin hips and the fact she can count her low ribs when pulling up her dress. There's been too many missions in her past, missions that she wishes to never remember but does because it's for the sake of her nation that she does the unspeakable things she's done. Her body steals the scene when the time is called for it. A drug lord eyes her from across the room and over to him she'll go, slowly lifting the scantily and revealing low cut dress. The drug lord's eyebrows raise, his eyes widen, and Midna has never felt more disgusting in her life.

It's engraved in her mind now that skin sells, she's been doing this for so long... nothing else makes sense. Midna's unsure if that's why she went immediately for a quick one night stand with Mac in the presidential bathroom. Mac's a handsome guy, Midna's willing to admit that about the secret service agent with his bulking muscles, bright eyes, a gentle smile, and a presence of roughness yet a tad bit of the guy's personality being warm and fuzzy. He's a great kisser, he's got hands that make Midna wish at one point he would've been her Mr. Nye, but the fact they work together complicates things.

 _Shouldn't that be the same for Roy? Don't be a hypocrite, Midna._

She flinches at the thought, it hadn't even crossed her mind that if she's somewhat attracted to him, he's just as much as a sidekick employee as Mac. Her heart hopes and prays to all the gods of all the religions - whichever is to answer her first, is Midna's desire - that in Roy, there's no semblance of romance colliding in his heart.

Midna finishes applying the blush, setting it back in her purse before stepping out of the airplane's lavatory. She begins to walk down the aisle, when Mac over by Pit's position gets up. The two lock eyes, and a cold shudder goes down the redhead's back, the arctic winds colliding with skin and her synapses flare to life. Something about his gaze is deadly and engaging. Her glance quickly goes to Roy, the other man huddled into a ball inside his chair, snoring away. It turns out Shulk in his perch is beginning to snore, the book splayed open against his chest. Marth and Ike are still engaged in their poker game, and Pit's too far gone in some technological daze to make any sense of anything else.

Mac stomps over to her, as it seems the man has never learned the talent of walking softly, where each step feels like an earthquake underneath her feet. He reaches her, and there's no happy emotions written across his face. His left hand grips her elbow roughly, and she's startled by the forcefulness of his approach. She shakes him off, scowling, and Midna's ready to have some WWE brawl in this aisle on this plane should he touch her like that ever again.

"You and I need to have a talk," he hisses at her, storming past her. "Right now!"

Midna follows his movement by turning her head. "You think?" she snarls back.

He wrenches open the bathroom door, nowhere else on the plane except the cockpit for privacy. She looks up at the ceiling, trying to find an answer in the paneling, but nothing other than the dull stenciling of shapes leer back at her. The redhead follows Mac back into the bathroom, unceremoniously slamming the door. Shulk stirs from his spot, but she's not in the frame of mind to care.

The bathroom is no larger than a nine by nine, a dinky toilet placed in the corner. The mirror is cracked with a few lipstick stains on it, and Midna's imaginative mind is able to picture the other pieces together. Mac crosses his arms together, leaning up against the far wall. For such a costly plane, the state of the bathroom leaves much to be desired as the light overhead flickers on and off occasionally, the secret service agent's scowl cast half in light and half in shadow. Midna looks at him annoyed.

"What do you want?"

"Do my feelings mean nothing to you?" Mac asks harshly, eyes full of a scorching anger.

"I'm not quite so sure what you mean." She's good at portraying the innocent school girl, but from the way Mac grips at her arm, the act is not fooling him.

"You know very well-"

She throws his hands off of her arm and pushes him back up against the wall. "Do not touch me again!" she threatens, barring her teeth. Midna's blood is boiling, and it's like Roy all over again where someone is upset and feeling damn entitled to something that isn't theirs to begin with.

Mac grits his teeth, looking down at the floor, letting out a sigh dripping with frustration and disappointment. "I thought we had something."

Midna can't help but laugh. _"What?"_

"I-"

"You and I had a quick fifteen minute 'sex-capade' in the bathroom and you call that as us having a relationship?"

"What would you call it?"

"A one-night stand! As it very well should," Midna exhales. "You're a super attractive guy, Mac, but we're colleagues and it's bad practice to date who you're working with. Especially on a Syrenet mission as prevalent as this."

"It seems like you were getting frisky with Roy at your last conversation," Mac glares at her. "Talking about how you wondered what would your life be like if you married him instead or-"

Midna is not going to listen to his bullshit. She's built herself up from nothing other than a deluded sense of reality and it'll be written in her will that the entire world will burn around her before someone comes in and desecrates all that she's accomplished. "Oh, no! You are not going there, _Mr._ Sarasota," Mac scowls at the usage of his proper name, but Midna's not gonna let up. "Roy and I know each other from years back. It happened to be that Roy could've been the one to save me from marrying the douchebag I got stuck with. For all the problems I've gotten myself into and the ones I still struggle with."

"Such as what?"

"That's none of your business."

"You have no problem telling Roy these things," Mac sets his jaw.

"Well- well he and I have history together."

"Like what?"

"That's none of your business."

"Well, if it decides to get in way of what _I'm_ -" he starts.

"I'm this close to sucker punching you in the gut," Midna's eyes blaze with a black and burning retribution to make the secret service agent spit blood. The arguments with her ex-husband come back, and the lights go out as the breaker is smashed to pieces. The bluntness of the mirror against her cheek as he slams her into it, Midna's cries becoming weaker and weaker till the sounds of cloth being ripped fill her eyes, followed by the pain... and Midna breaks face, lip quivering.

Mac sighs, running a hand through his air. "Snake told me that I needed to stop trying to pursue something with you. I'm here to tell him that he can go and shove his regards back up his ass," he goes for her hands, much more gently, and Midna's stuck trying to forget her ex-husband that his fingers lock with hers easily, like smooth butter in a pan, and Mac picks her chin up - eyes match, and for a moment there's harmony - where her expression is foggy. "I like you, Midna. Roy doesn't. You can _see_ it when you talk to him. You're a gorgeous woman, that's a fact no one can deny you, but is everyone hung up on your attractiveness or your personality. I'm in _love_ with both."

Midna's mind registers that Mac says he loves her, but it's too late for her to change her mind. He leans in a gently places his lips on hers. She stays perfectly still, hands still locked with his, unsure of what to do and where to take everything from here. It doesn't hit her till moments later that she's now kissing back, lips sliding under teeth, and then the hands begin to roam.

She backs Mac up into the bathroom wall again, and the light above jolts out and snaps back on. Mac presses slightly harder against her lips, and Midna's heart leaps once more as it did back, ironically, in the bathroom over at Corrin's mansion. His hands rest against the sharpness of her shoulder blades, and Midna sucks in a breath of surprise as his fingers splay outwards across the rigid hump of bone. She places her hands against his chest, the solidness and firmness of the muscles underneath transforming into silly putty as she kneads into his skin.

Slowly, Midna raises a knee up between Mac's legs, and a sound gets caught in his throat, an estranged cry of pleasure that causes her to smile against their kiss. She slides her leg in and out in the space, and the secret service agent babbles a sweet compliment. She collides their lips together, a tangy salty sea taste flushing between them. His fingers move down her front, now resting ghostly against her hips, and there's a pause. Midna's mind panics, as she's unable to recall if Mac remembers how skinny the area around there had been, but her thoughts are rest assured. Mac's hands pick up speed, his thumbs tracing circles around her hip bones, flowing over the pocket of ticklish flesh near her thigh.

Midna lowers her hands as well, going underneath the hem of Mac's jeans, and the breaths pick up and accelerate. The two break apart from their lip lock and Midna looks into Mac's eyes. An unreadable emotion glimmers in his oceanic orbs, one that isn't lust, but does not necessarily lie in the border of love and want, but something more. _Companionship._

She tugs his jeans down, down, _down,_ and Mac shudders against the chilly and cold air of the bathroom hitting exposed flesh. Midna smirks, rising back up to then take his shirt off. His muscle toned body is put on all display for her to see, and she's not upset at the very least in the latest turn of events.

He leans in and nips softly at her neck, a rush of wind expelling out of her lungs.

"Do you love me?" he asks into the nape, warmed consonants and vowels fluttering.

"No. I _fucking_ hate you."

Mac smirks against her skin, kissing it softly. "You're a bad liar."

Midna is unable to respond, and then the light above completely goes out.

She's grateful, and soon both of their voices utter out foreign phrases of tongue as the plane rocks, and it comes to the point where the redhead is unsure whether or not that it's turbulence... or something other than.

* * *

Sheik lowers the visors from her eyes, peering above the black frames, a clean cut line of shadow and above it the colorful dance of the world. The sun beats down onto the mustard colored taxi cab, the driver silent yet noisy at the same time. The blonde likes how the sunlight hits her hair, the braid practically glowing a fluorescent sheen of halcyon with the added splash of color. Her phone sits against her leg, and bounces up with her as the taxi comes to stoplights and stop signs, speed bumps and the occasional stomping of brakes that flings her forward.

Her cab driver does not know English all too well, so his question of asking whether or not she's okay comes out to be if her lady parts have experienced any damage, as Sheik blushes profusely, hoping the light overshadows the red tint settling on her cheeks. Her legs are exhausted from the long drive from Oklahoma City to Chicago. It is easier for her to fly, but the woman has never trusted planes in her youth after her mother died in a plane accident thanks to a thunderbolt from the sky. Sheik wants thunderbolts to zap down from the sky and end a many people's lives, but of course the only person in her life to die from the sky's discharge is a person she loves.

 _Partially loves._ Her mind has to replay that track record over and over again or otherwise she'll forget it. Her mother's face will never go away, like a haunting memory. Sheik wonders what her mother may have looked like in the throes of death, her final moments before the fire lacerated her skin and tore away at the bone and seat she's stuck to. Is her hair gorgeous or burnt to cinders, dark brown with hints of a copper red fleeting through the mask of mahogany. Sheik frowns, thinking of another complication. Her father had a mixture of blonde and brown hair, more the latter than the former, with wicked hazel eyes. Her mother is a dark haired gal through and through, sea emerald green eyes that make a cat very jealous sitting in her skull. How do they procreate a baby with blonde hair and blue eyes? She's never posed the question.

She switches topics again, going back to reminiscing and wondering about the plane crash. What is her mother wearing? A floral dress like she used to, or something darker and sinister? Is her hair loose and wavy against the small of her back, or stuck up high in a ponytail or bun? Is her mother thinking of her daughter and husband before she dies, or the last sentence of the last book she's read? Maybe it's the lingering taste of wine that stays with her forever, but the answer will never be asked.

Sheik's at dinner with her father - she's nicknamed him Sal because she's always found that name funny with her father's antics - after a term of college ends, and she remembers it being her sophomore year, having just turned twenty. Sheik's longing for a bourbon, or a scotch, but Sal is refusing to put that down on the tab as he swears by the holy book he's buying her dinner whether she wants him to or not. She settles for an iced tea, stirring it and stirring it because Sheik Braring actually doesn't like iced tea but it's cheaper than buying a soda, so there's that.

Sal is cutting into his steak, a slab of prime rib with a heaping side of mashed potatoes, and she picks apart at her Caesar salad. He's downing a jug of ale, with foam spewing off the top onto the side of the glass and onto the table like bile frothing at the mouth of a ravenous bear. "You're quiet," he comments, taking the bite that had been on his fork. "You're normally not that quiet, Sheik. What's the matter?"

"I'm just thinking," she responds.

"Yeah? What about?"

"Do I have to tell you?"

"I'm your father. It's my job to inquire in these things."

Her hands stop moving around the salad. Her mother's casket is freshly buried in the ground, and there's been little time for her to recover. Something about the reading of her mother's will haunts her and stays lingering behind, whispers from the walls of her dorms that come out at night. "Was Mom not really my mother?"

Sheik can recall to this day that Sal gets eerily quiet, and the sounds of his fork scraping against the plate cease till the banter of the restaurant drown out their hub of precious silence. He locks his jaw, considering a response, but says nothing, taking another bite of steak. "Why do you ask that, honey?"

"It was something that had been said in her will."

"What?"

The blonde bites the lower left side of her lip, looking at the other patrons. Everyone else is huddled around their table with gleeful and gay conversations passing between them, husbands and wives sharing a dessert together, or a mother looking adoringly at her newborn while she tries feeding him a single long noodle of spaghetti, yet here she is not having said more than twenty words all dinner, and Sal is doing all the talking.

"I remember her sister, Aunt Tetra, reading that I wasn't what Mom intended to have her in life."

Sal sets down his silverware, cupping his hands underneath each other as he places his elbows on the table. "That wasn't what Tetra had said, sweetie."

Sheik has the entire phrase recited to memory, she's been musing over it for the past three weeks incessantly, non stop almost to where she nearly failed her Chemistry final. "To Sheik, my beautiful daughter, you are not what I intended to have in my life. Occasionally I'd watch you play, and see that there's more to you that meets the eye. That you aren't a mix of me and Sal, but of people my husband and I could never be. Bravery, courage, a 'kickass' love for shooting, and looks I could only dream of..."

Her father looks at her with sadness in his eyes. "Sheik..."

"What did Mom mean by that?"

He looks off just like her, unable to bring his focus back to the center. Sal presses his napkin up to his lips, chewing on the inside of his cheek. "What your mother meant by that was you were a child who exceeded all of your expectations. Your mother wanted a child to be docile, scholarly, and quiet, just like she was. I'm more lively and energetic, but you know I keep to myself a lot. You, Sheik, however, play the role of the engager. You're constantly up making friends, being the loudest presence in the room, and also being a pretty wicked fighter. You've got more skill with a sniper rifle at twenty with fourteen years of practice than I did with nearly forty. Your mother only meant that she originally wanted someone unlike you, and then realized later in life that you're more than she could ever ask for."

Sal's words echo in her brain, like a puck bouncing off the digital sticks of Pong, but Sheik takes a sip of iced tea and bores her stare into her father's eyes. Sheik doesn't believe him, and she'll never believe him.

"Promise?"

"I promise, darling," Sal's gaze is saddening.

"You wouldn't lie to me?"

Her father reaches across the table and grabs his daughter by the hand. "I will never have any reason to lie to you, Sheik."

The blonde is so caught up in her pensive state of mind that she doesn't register the cab driver slamming on his brakes. She goes flying forward, the memory of that college dinner so long ago now a fleeting creature with no merit to its name. Her driver locks eyes with her in the mirror, grinning jubilantly from ear-to-ear. "Here!" he exclaims, and it's enough to let Sheik know that she's arrived at her destination.

She lets herself out of the cab, the trunk popping open. Wrenching one of her suitcases out, the sound of metal clanging inside makes her blood freeze, eyes snapping at the cab driver in case he had heard. The world continues, nothing amiss. The package of her _Revolution_ is inside on of the suitcases, and even though it is as silent as the dead who walk, it makes the most noise inside her head.

Sheik only brings with her three suitcases when she travels. A backpack, a rolling suitcase, and a bag she can carry in one hand. She had paid the cab driver when he picked her up at the airport, nodding at him when he then gets back into the ugly mustard vehicle and drives away. A cloud of smog covers her, and the blonde coughs fiercely, hugging her chest as she can feel the germs and grime coat her braid. The expert braid that she's spent so long making is probably ruined, and she'll never get the chance to avenge the fallen hairstyle.

Heaving with all her strength, Sheik musters forward through the high rise hotel doors of the place she shall be staying, the warm Chicago air brazen against her skin. Walking up to the front, a concierge stands nice and neat behind the counter with a fake smile to boot, perfectly manicured nails that could scratch the rebel leader's eyes out, and probably fifteen concealed weapons on the woman's body.

"Checking in?" the woman asks sweetly, batting her eyelashes.

A dull throb begins to quiver in Sheik's lower lip. " _I want to burn you alive,"_ her mind hisses, and then aloud at the woman, "Yes. A room reservation for Sheik Braring."

The woman scans the computer screen in front of her, clicking her tongue between her cheek, the noise eerily sounding like a gunshot. Sheik is reminded of long evenings with Sal by her shoulders, guiding the hands as they lock the magazines in place, the click of reloading, and the ghastly sound of steel being let loose from its cage. When she showers, Sheik sometimes and it's only when she's damaged and depressed - luckily, that isn't often - imagines that instead of water coating her skin, it is the cardinal drops of blood from the animals she's killed, or the dirt still clinging to a musty old pair of boots that may be her father's but she's never asked.

Several keys are given to her, Sheik nods, and then scampers away from the concierge desk as fast as she can. The woman's perfume is starting to stick to her body, and Sheik would rather prefer to smell like taxi cab exhaust than desirable candy cane December, which she's sure is what the woman has hovering around her form. The blonde walks over to the nearest elevator, hitting the up button.

A little jingle plays for her, something akin to Yankee Doodle, which causes Sheik to frown. Unless she's hearing incorrectly, that's the same exact sound coming out of the console where the buttons stay. The elevator arrives on her floor with a _ding,_ Sheik stepping in. It closes behind her quite abruptly, causing her to lurch with the sudden upward shift in motion. She steadies herself, leg muscles still aching from the long drive. Sheik, despite the fact she didn't fly, gets a cab at an airport. Her father instills in her at a young age that you've never experience a city if you're forced to drive through it. _Get a cab. You'll save yourself a lot of heartache._

Sheik's room is up on the eleventh floor, quite high but luckily Sheik Braring is not afraid of heights.

The elevator stops on her floor, and the doors slide open with a flourish. She stands stock still in the slate cube, hesitant. If she takes the next few steps forward, there's no going back. She'll never be able to go back. In her heart, she knows that this is the right thing, and it's about time she turns her words into actions and takes them seriously.

The blonde steps onto the floor, the elevator closes and begins to depart down towards the lower floors. Sheik's heels on the carpeted floor echo around the walls, until she gets to her room, in the middle of the hall. She unlocks the door with her room key, pushing open the barrier, and stepping inside. She leaves her luggage in the doorway, looking about the room. Sunlight is streaming through an open window in the other corner, the sheets and curtains of the room a solid white.

She sighs, taking a deep breath.

"Let's do this," she says determinedly.

Sheik's beginning of the end for Syrenet in Chicago shall begin.

* * *

Although Ike's comforting words and pats on the back seem reassuring, Marth's heart continues to pound against his ribcage even after the plane settles onto the runway with a screech. The door to the cockpit opens, and the merry trio of Corrin, Robin, and Snake step out into the main section of the cabin. The president's face is at a calm resolve, and Marth's wanting to hate her, wanting to split her in two with his bare hands so she can feel the terror he's gone through, what he'll be dealing with for the entire duration of their stay.

Corrin examines the group collected, Roy waking up from his nap. "Where's Midna and Mac?"

The group sitting in their seats - Marth, Ike, Pit, Roy, and Shulk respectively - all look around. Shulk catches on first, clearing his throat. "Midna! Mac!" he calls out.

There's the sound of someone slamming their head against something, and the stifling of a curse. The door to the plane bathroom wrenches open, and out stumble the fated pair. Roy's face flushes a bright red, which Marth catches with an expert eye. Both people in the concerned party have their hair disheveled, eyes wild, and some buttons undone here and there. Corrin looks down at her feet, swallowing her rage, before giving the Syrenet crew a one-over.

"Thanks for being patient with Robin, Snake, and I as we discussed White House matters in the cockpit. Hopefully you kept yourselves entertained..." her words do not fall on deaf ears, Midna's face burning brighter and deeper than her already glowing amber hair.

Snake claps his hands together. "Get your things. We'll be leaving to our headquarters location in about ten minutes."

Everyone begins to move except Marth. His luggage is by his feet, and there's no need to move it anywhere else. Marth can't help but feel surging rage course through his veins when looking at Corrin. The flight has given him a lot of time by himself, and this time wisely has been used to think. He thinks of cloudless nights where he's up on the roof of his college dorm staring at the stars, or down by the beach as a young boy with his family playing in the sand and waves, seashells tickling the undersides of his feet, his mother throwing him up in her arms, or the cruel glare of the sun down on his exposed skin.

However, passing the memories also is the first year when he arrives at Syrenet. There's not too many details shared on the news about it in the beginning, except it's under a youthful presidential candidate who wants to do some good in a very unusual way, and Marth signs up. He passes the first several tests and exams no problem, eyes sharper than a hawk's, brain moving a mile a minute, and his looks can charm the pants off of anyone. However, when it comes to the two-year trainee program, something that Corrin actually ends after Marth's signing into the Syrenet program, the bluenette hits his first ever major roadblock.

Several jerks - Marth's forgotten their names now, and it's been years - get jealous of his ability at shining in the trainee program. He's a cut grade above everyone else, so four or five _guys_ \- in the bluenette's eyes they're children through and through, but petty insults will get him nowhere - decide that making Marth Lowell's life a living hell on Earth would be good for him and knock some gratitude and good sense into him. At first it's simply harassing him about the slightly queer look he's got, but Marth's straighter than the North Pole, so that falls short, but then it turns into a night where he's dragged from his bed and beaten senseless in the hallway. Marth keeps his mouth shut, believing the threats hissed in his ear as the fists go ramming, or when the skin collides into his backside, body smashed against the carpet, the plastering wall... Marth is beaten up and stays silent. It's his way, it's always been his way, and nothing is ever going to change that.

The Syrenet coaches and the all of the government directors never ask where the bruises on his face come from, or the languid scratches down his back that pierce the skin and draw out crimson droplets. It takes him two years and the continuous humiliation and pain that is unable to be replicated anywhere else before Marth lashes back and lets go, falling into a comatose state where work is the only thing on his mind - Corrin's happy, the higher-ups are delighted, his personal stats soar, and Marth is miserable - until he wants to never read another word from a Syrenet mission letter ever again. His DNA however refuses to back down, and so Marth gruels to fight another day.

When he's inducted into Syrenet's ranks as the 2nd in command of all the Syrenet Squads, his bullies are nowhere to be found, probably shamefully stirring their shoes in the dirt. If they could only see him now, where Marth wakes up screaming from nightmares, or is chastised by his closest friend for never opening up, the nights Marth is surrounded in a pool of his own piss because the frightening images elicit more than just screams or chills... to where he wants to give up and throw in the towel... the bullies were right from day one.

Ten minutes pass, and everyone starts to get off the plane. Corrin goes first by executive right, followed by Robin. Marth waits till it is his turn, letting Midna and Mac scramble out afterwards. Pit takes his sweet ole time putting up his Automatic Army, and Roy sleepily stumbles out after him. Shulk is reading the book that he had been looking at earlier on the flight, somehow not collapsing down the steps. Ike claps Marth on the back, hand clenching against the shoulder blade to say everything is okay.

He can see it now. Marth sees it clear as day, a life of his own once Syrenet is over, and he's given it up forever. Her hair is blowing in the wind, covering her face slightly where the glint of her eyes ferociously illuminates out of the wave of mahogany, and he's expressive in a hearty chortle that has both of them crying. There's a future between them, Marth feels, and that future is gorgeous. Twins swinging from modeled tire swing attached to the sturdiest tree branch, a daisy dress clinging to the girl while the boy feels to sit there exposed and naked, but Marth has found absolute beauty in his son.

It's a future full of sunny mornings and starry night skies, where the bills are paid and his wife somehow is a Victoria's Secret model with lingerie more expensive than their entire house and the acreage surrounding it. It's a future that seems wonderful.

If only Marth Lowell wasn't so shit scared to reach out and seize it.

He finally - it's been a good four minutes since everyone started filing out of the plane - gets up and grabs the one duffel he brought with him. He ducks down low so he doesn't hit his head, and stands on the top step of the set of stairs down to the runway. The rest of the group is piled about, all talking, and everyone's attention turns to him. Marth jumps like a deer caught in the headlights. Sweat begins to trickle down his forehead, skin becoming clammy and seizing up.

Robin frowns. "Marth? It's okay!"

Ike breaks from his half-hearted conversation with Mac, looking back at his best friend. "Marth?"

The bluenette freezes, duffle bag dropping down the steps and landing in a plume of dust at the bottom of the stairs. Shulk starts forward, closest to Marth, but stills with one foot on the first step. Marth's throat closes up and he begins to exhale heavily, trying to get the breath out. His eyes go wide, hands clutching at his throat while the nails of his hands claw, _claw down_ and the scarlet begins to spill out. His name is shouted out, but Ike runs up the steps before anyone else can, reaching his best friend first.

"Everyone give him some space! I think he's having an anxiety or panic attack!" he calls out.

"Should I call 911?" Corrin's voice sounds almost as if she's annoyed, and Ike would do anything to throttle the president right across the jaw for her insolent comment.

"I'm gonna sit him down inside the plane. Give me a couple of minutes, okay?" Ike asks.

He leads his best friend back inside the main cabin of the plane, sitting him down in the nearest chair he stumbles upon. Marth's throat lets up and he is able to breathe, each one shakier than the last, arms visibly trembling. Ike grabs his friend's hands in his own, and slightly recoils from the clamminess and unnatural feeling of Marth's palms. The commander of Charlie Squad cusses, wrenching open a small refrigerator that is up against the far right wall next to the cockpit door. He grabs a water bottle and twists the cap clean off so hard that it bounces against the sides.

Some of it sloshes out onto the carpet, but Ike doesn't care. He stands up, slightly bent over Marth's form. "I need you to open your mouth, Marth. I'm going to slowly pour some water down your throat. You need to let me know if it is too much for you at one time. Nod if you can hear me."

Marth nods, but his eyes make Ike's heart fall. They're wide and laced with fear, a fear that strikes in the heart of even the most stalwart warrior. Marth's lithe chest rises and falls with every breath, and if his best friend is to place his hand up against it, he'd feel the stampede of hooves on a dirt trodden Earth against the ribcage. Ike is unsure exactly what is causing the total takeover of fear, but if he is given three guesses, he'll nab it.

The burlier man of the two slowly tips the water bottle to Marth's lips, gently prodding as the liquid slowly spills out. He hears Marth swallowing every couple of seconds, the tension in Marth's eyes slowly lessening. He goes through half the bottle before Marth is grasping for it on his own, hands seizing the sides and swallowing down a good three fourths of it.

"I-" Marth tries to talk.

Ike shushes him. "Don't speak. Not yet," he instructs sternly, slowly taking the water bottle from his best friend. "I'm going to feel your pulse for thirty seconds." He places his fingers against the side of Marth's neck, the drumming beat of the bluenette's veins pulsating underneath his fingers. Ike watches Marth's eye movements, tracking them to see how speedily his eyes dance around, and notice that his breathing slowly is starting to shallow down to more relaxing paces and heaves. However, his pulse rate is way too high, as if he had just run from Somalia terrorists or did a Boston Marathon.

"Ike, I-"

"I said to not talk. Please..." the other man pleads, still counting the commander's heartbeat. A dew seconds pass between them. "Your heartbeat is pumping way too fast for my liking," Ike grits his teeth. "I'm going to ask you a series of questions. I need you to answer them in the best way possible, but take your time if you need to continue catching your breath. Nod if you understand," A complacent nod. "Where are you?"

"Currently on President Corrin Etch's private jet, on a runway in Chicago."

"Who are you?"

"I'm Marth Lowell, commander of Beta Squad for the government branch of Syrenet."

"Who is talking to you?"

"My best friend Ike Forgenson, commander of Charlie Squad for the government branch of Syrenet."

"Can I ask what is causing your tension and lack of breathing?"

Marth hesitates, and Ike is worried that he's overstepped his boundaries and has gone too far now. However, all the bluenette under questioning is doing is taking deeper breaths where his chest rises to full expansion and slowly recedes to normal position. "I'm worried about the mission, and that I won't be able to help the group should problems occur."

Ike shifts from standing to going to his knees. "Follow my finger, please."

The commander uses his pointer finger and goes left with it, all the way to as far as his arm can reach. Luckily, Marth's eyes follow according to a sign of better health and being in a far better predicament than moments earlier. Ike lifts his finger up, Marth follows suit. Down, same result, right meets the definition of assurance, and back to the center does Ike feel like Marth's calmed down some.

"Let me feel your pulse again." Ike places his fingers up against Marth's neck, his friend subtly flinching under the warmness in his two fingers. The commander nods as he counts in his head, satisfied by the result. "Good. It's slowed down. Now it's like you went for a walk around the block. How do you feel?"

"I-"

"Don't lie to me, Marth. _Please._ "

"I'm okay. Better, I mean," Marth answers.

Ike gives him back his water bottle. "Continue to sip it."

Marth chugs down the rest, totally ignoring the advice of his best friend. The sound of someone climbing back up the steps breaks the eerie quiet, Shulk appearing in the shadowed light. "Corrin wants to know if we'll need an ambulance."

Both bluenette men lock eyes, the one sitting in the chair gives the dissented shake of his head. Ike smiles at that, then looks back at the blonde commander. "Marth's okay. We'll be a few more minutes."

"You good?" Shulk looks at Marth.

"I'm good..." the bluenette responds, weakly.

Shulk nods lowly at both men, and gives a full smile. He jogs back down the steps and Ike can hear him call out the answer with a few sighs of relief following in response.

Marth sits in his spot, unmoving, and feels his body slowly start to calm down. When his anxiety attack came on, his body warmed up to insane temperatures, heat pooling in his ears and the joints along his arms and legs starting to rust together, where he fears they'd snap in place under any more forceful pressure. His vision began to blur together, and all he sees is disjointed blobs of color, and one bright hue of cobalt rushes to up him, guiding him by the hand - Marth feels like he's being lifted in the man's arms via bridal style - but he's able to slightly register that it is Ike helping him out, keeping him content, and bringing him back to Earth.

"I'm sorry..." he whispers.

"For what?" Ike asks, eyes full of empathy, yet a distilled sense of confusion.

"For being like... like this," Marth throws his hands up to try and get the message across that he's this large mess. "I've been freaking out and having nightmares, and now these stupid panic attacks all over Syrenet... and here you are trying to deal with it like a mom. I imagine I'm stressing you out."

"You're giving me gray in my hair. You're beyond the point of worrying me out and stressing me out, Marth. And you shouldn't have to apologize about anything."

"I feel like I'm going to cause this entire mission to fail. There's all this pressure on me and I'm unsure whether or not I'll be able to rise up to it."

Marth tries to think over in his lifetime if there's ever been someone at the same level of pure awesomeness and dedication that Ike, Ike freaking Forgenson exudes when it comes to a family member or best friend, and then it's decide that no one has ever, is currently, or ever will come close to how his best friend and Syrenet partner in crime has along the time he's been alive. Though the two share their common insults and petty fights like all friends do, Marth sees the world from Ike's perspective - the black coffin, a rose, a tar ocean, a casket of gold, a bouquet of violet petals, a hailstone, a curl of blonde hair, and a rusted nail - that is the experience and world he's shared between someone no longer considered just a passing friend.

Ike chuckles at Marth's last sentence. "You aren't going to cause any one of us to fail at this mission. Either we succeed as a team, or we all lose as a team. Besides, I'm your best friend. It's what I'm here for. Picking up the pieces once you collapse. I'm lucky that you just happen to not collapse all that much."

Both men sit in a silence that for once is not awkward, but one that is mutual and filled to the brim of brotherly love. "I- there's something I never told you before, since I've known you," Marth says.

"And what would that be?"

"Before you were selected to join the Syrenet team, Corrin had a program that acted like a boot camp of sorts, and trainees were selected to be a part of this program. It was to last about two or so years, have a graduating class, and all that nonsense. A few guys in my 'class' got jealous of my success and began to harass and bully me. It was like we were back to being fifth graders again, Ike, I swear. I never did anything about it. I just sat there and took their nightly beatings. They punched me, they cussed at me, they spit on me..." he trails off.

Ike catches on, and his face reads the emotion of pure heartbreak. "Did they..." the man is unable to continue that thought.

Marth swallows the bile rising in his throat. "Yeah, Ike, they did. They raped me... and no one ever bat an eye because I never told them. Never showed anyone the scars. Never saw a doctor... God I was so stupid back then..." the commander lets out a nervous laugh, staring at the ceiling of the plane. "I'm in my mid-twenties, living in a dorm that isn't parent's place... I didn't ever think about what would happen," he closes his eyes and the sounds all come back, a flood of distasteful memories, where the copper still lingers in his gums, and everything goes sour. "But, anyways, after finally managing to get through literal hell on Earth, I escaped those bastards' clutches. No one in Syrenet, especially after those circumstances has ever gotten close to me. I used to have a friend in high school who was almost like my brother, except he didn't like the color blue. However, you-"

"Yeah. I know, I like the color blue." Despite his best efforts, Ike breaks into a gleaming smile.

"I can say that you're my brother, now..." Marth's voice catches in his throat, and then he's wrapping his arms around Ike in a hug. The other man is caught off guard, wondering exactly how a trip to Chicago starts off with a panic attack and is ending on a bittersweet soulful admitting of finding family. Ike returns the embrace happily, squeezing tight and letting go so that both men feel slightly warmer about the end result.

"Thanks, Marth."

"I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it."

"You're not one to lie."

"Thanks. Thanks for calming me down, I-"

"Don't need to say it."

Ike struggles to his feet, knees having become sore. He holds his hand out to Marth who takes it. The commander of Charlie Squad lugs his friend up like he's a dainty flower, and the entire plane cabin feels as if the pressure has been sucked out by a vacuum. Ike tosses the empty water bottle in the trash can, not actually looking at where it lands, and smirks when he hears it hit the side of the can and not fall in it. He'll get it later, he supposes.

"Are you ready?" he asks.

Marth exhales, and closes his eyes. "Yeah. Let's get this mission on the road."

The two commanders exit the plane under a roaring tide of applause, where hugs and apologies and comforting words are tossed all around. Marth hugs tight to Robin's motherly grip, and he feels like he's seven again, as his mother kisses the boo-boos away, and chases the monsters out from under the bed.

Underneath the blazing sky, the Syrenet crew has managed, although not fully intact it seems, to survive the touchdown into Chicago.

It is Chicago's duly noted greeting.

* * *

 **And like on a usual TV show, _roll credits!_ Haha, there we are ladies and gentlemen, Chapter #20: Chicago's Greeting, the end of Arc #2. Wow, that was indeed a long one. I cut out a scene with Sheik that I was going to have be the end of the chapter, but it'll be a better used cliffhanger somewhere else than here. But, wowie wow we have a lot to cover. This chapter has also indeed spiked over a 10k like I wanted, and we've had three breaking records for the chapters in this arc that #20 is the longest so far, and there will be a chapter or two in the final arc that'll trump it easily. Let's go step by step.**

 **So, this is how we see Roy knows Midna! I am very, very surprised actually that I don't think anyone has picked up on the fact Midna had been introduced earlier in the story in Roy's passing thoughts of Chapter 3 while he's in the elevator. No one caught it - or at the very least said anything - and since it has been on Roy's tongue for a few chapters, now you know! He and her's relationship is an odd one that I like writing, as there is romantic tension, but Midna is that type of girl where she's quite unsure what she wants.**

 **For Midna and Mac's scene, I didn't actually plan on including a minor scene like that where the romance hits the borderline M mark, as it could've branched into something further, but I just wanted to get the point across where you knew where they were heading, in spite of all Midna feels and Midna swears by. Now, it'll be an interesting poll from you reviewers, who you feel Midna may end up with at the end of the story. Clearly she's my romantic bargaining piece. Will she be with Roy as traditional storylines go, with Mac because I love twists, or someone different entirely? I'd be curious on your thoughts.**

 **I also enjoyed Sheik's scene the most. Her constant thinking of possible scenarios is fun as there are endless possibilities out there. Now, what hints have you picked up on? Any idea who Sheik's mother would be, from her talk with Sal? Any guesses as to who Sal is from the Zelda games? I'd be mildly surprised if you knew, as Sheik's parents are fun little connections and I suppose, Easter Eggs, in that franchise. Another question I want to pose at this current time is this: Do you believe Sheik is our villain? Usually every story of mine has one, and this is a drama adventure story, we've got a villain. Is it her? Someone we haven't met? Or... someone else in your mind? Sound off, I'm interested in knowing ya'll and your thoughts.**

 **This last scene, I wanted to have a true Marth and Ike bond. I haven't written them as friends in a story before, but only ever as a couple with sex involved, so having this shift is nice. Our poor commander in charge has too much on his plate, but with a steady group I feel it can be brought to help him stay aligned. I think that was the longest section of the chapter, and think it ends the arc on a foreboding note. What lies in store?**

 **Arc 1 ended at around 48k. My original wishes were to simply double it at 96k. When I post this chapter, we'll be at 127k, which is 31000 words more than I intended, which I find amazing. We're gonna break 200k for this story, believe it or not. What were your favorite parts about the second arc? How about least favorite parts? Who was your favorite character in the arc? Least favorite? Most shocking moments? I'm interested in hearing what you have to say. We've already said goodbye to Ness and Cloud in this arc, more doom on the way.**

 **With this gigantic closing AN, I'm sorry about it lol. Please review, especially answering my questions, as I'd love to hear your answers! If you've made it this far and haven't already, go and vote on my poll for your favorite three characters of this story! Those results are quite surprising! I will see you sometime in the next two weeks with Chapter #21: Itching to Play, the kick off of Arc 3 and now the second half of this story. Thank you so much for reading, reviewing, and simply being awesome fans of my work! I love you all! Have an amazing day! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	21. Chapter 21: Itching to Play

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #21: Itching to Play. I've been away for awhile, but that's because my senior year of high school started about two weeks ago and we all know how getting caught in the swoop of things goes. As I'm learning how to drive, between four AP courses, swept into two separate periods of theater, and the general whirlwind of chaos that is someone's Senior year, my time for typing has been pretty minimal. Last chapter was the end of Arc 2, and this shall be the beginning of Arc 3. Arc 2 ended with a season like finale that definitely made things seem either a mix of darkness or hope, your pick. A relationship sparked, there's someone's past being unearthed, and a connection was made. Review replies!**

 **Metroid-Killer- Yeah, not providing spoilers has been the worst thing in the world because I really,** ** _really_** **want to tell people about the piece for those reading, but I can't as it's stupid and gives away many of the major twists and turns that this story has. Interesting idea about the Automatic Army. Hold onto it, that may come in handy way down the road. Midna is a wildcard, eh? It would suck if something horrible got thrown in the middle of her plans. And ding! You're correct! Zelda is Sheik's mother figure, and then the father is supposed to be Salvatore, a character in Wind Waker, who runs some throwing like game at a carnival if I recall correctly. Purely there for Zelda Easter Egg references.**

 **Dusk Aura- I'm glad you like this story! If you want to see another one where Roy is pictured quite strongly, go and read a piece of mine called Icarus Chronicle! He's not the lead character, but he's one of the eight main stars of that story, and given the fantasy elements of IC, I'd gander that he's stronger than the Roy in this piece from strength alone.**

 **SeththeGreat- *muses* Okay, interesting thoughts, interesting thoughts. Snake and Robin's role as mentors will continue to rise, and both will play a pivotal role in the turmoil to come. Do you think I'll have them end up as a couple, or it'll turn into a macabre deal? Yep, we have a depressing as f story. That's why I constantly think I'm some one track mind, one trick pony where it's just doom and gloom all around even if there's genuine light heartedness going on. Thanks for your great commentary!**

 **CrashGuy01- I just love referring to Syrenet as a TV show. It gets myself amped up and that's odd considering I'm the one writing it but I digress. Midna, Mac, and Roy may be my actual first real attempt at a love triangle if I can pull it off correctly, but then there needs to be true and full conviction on Roy's part. We know Mac is smitten, but Roy? He might need a little bit more convincing. Since Zelda is Sheik's mother, Tetra is her Wind Waker counterpart, or close enough to it and all I do is place characters in universes in unusual positions and pray it works. Corrin was your least favorite? She was one of my favorites, most definitely next to Shulk. But then again they're all awesome characters. Let's just hope they don't die.**

 **I am taking AP Literature and Composition this year, and I think it'll really start to influence how I write from just getting vast exposure to the types of fiction and styles that are out there. Enjoy the beginning to Arc 3, Chapter #21: Itching to Play.**

* * *

Sheik rolls around in the sheets, legs tangled up in the bedspread as she laughs and wipes away tears. The shadows dance along the crown molding, reaching for the stars and shooting beyond the tallest snowy capped peaks - her shadow is alive, Sheik Braring is a confirmed Peter Pan nearly two hundred years later - till there is no more room to stretch to.

She sits up and spins the charger cord of her phone around her finger, the cellular device stuck between the left crook of her neck as she twirls away. A long lost colleague from years and years past has their voice filling the speaker, and the blonde's soul has elated to new heights. Seeing the caller ID pop up _just_ as she's about to retire is like a child seeing presents under the Christmas tree. Sheik squeals - _god,_ she feels like she's back in middle school with her antics - and seizes the phone with a newfound electric surge racing through her soul.

Her hair is messy, combed neatly after the shower she had taken, sitting in zany waves down the small of her back. The person on the other end has come up with a code name, and Sheik does likewise for her friend - you never know who's listening, and she's going to want to be more safe than sorry by giving away her real name - which, after not talking to her companion for years and years makes her almost sound like a stranger.

"Amber, that may have been the funniest thing I've ever heard you say!" Sheik giggles into her hand.

The voice on the other end is slightly rougher than she's used to, where in times past it was smooth and full of life, as if now everything joyous in the person's world has been sucked out. Her friend sucks in a breath, and Sheik can hear the laughing on the other end. "I've been waiting to say that for quite some time. I'm glad to see it be put into some use," there's a slight pause from Amber, and the sound of a body shifting. "Have you landed in Chicago yet?"

Sheik looks around her room, and then at the phone. "How do you know that I was headed to Chicago? I haven't told you."

She can feel the smirk poking her. "I have friends," Amber says cryptically.

"Can I learn of who those friends are so I may have a personal detail team?"

"It'd be for the best that you didn't," the voice is sullen, as if worried about the possible consequences. "It could cause some compromises on the other end."

Sheik runs a hand alongside the ends of her sheets, fingers splaying up against the nightstand, digits illuminated by a brightness from above. "I wish I could talk to you face-to-face. It'd make me feel better."

"You know that is also for my safety, Ocarina."

The blonde scowls. "Why did we make that my code name?"

"You've always liked the instrument."

"You're not wrong." Sheik's eyes catch it from the side of a high school band room, and the reflective surface stares back at her. The blonde sees her future in the mirror, a possible future with stars above her head, and water tickling at her feet as a shining sun rises over the horizon.

Amber sighs from her side of the world, the sound of boiling water breaking through the quietness. Sheik has never felt this alone before, this... distanced from someone she cares about in her entire life. If what she is planning on doing happens- no, the rebel leader shakes her head, her mouth going dry. She is not going to think about that yet, it'd be for the worst.

"What are you planning to do in Chicago? Illegal activity?"

"That's what the Syrenet team will call it. It's what the news will call it. But it will be for the best," Sheik grits her teeth, the very mention of the governmental organization sending chills down her spine, each syllable coated in a venomous poison.

"You said the same thing about Oklahoma City and yet your group of rebels killed nearly fifty people," Amber chastises.

Sheik bites on the inside of her cheek. That was not a fun memory for her. That intrusion, only a few months ago in fact, is due to poor hindsight on her part. Her blood is on fire, seeing the instigators and degenerates on that platform declaring their mission statement - 'We're Here To Help is what it says, in big block letters that the blonde burns away with a lighter - all the while, presumably knowing in the back of their minds, they're all lying. The rebel leader sees through the message on the first day it is announced and gets to planning. With conjoined efforts, three primary teams destined to create havoc inside Syrenetic cities are created. The West, which Sheik is still quite angered at for their stint in Portland, is the most aggressive. The Eastern seaboard is pacifist, their base of operations down and throughout the Sun Belt, as leaders of that campaign felt it'd be too risky to put their group so close to D.C, the safeguard of Syrenet itself. Sheik, who finds herself somehow the main figurehead of a rebel group of nearly sixty thousand people, makes the Midwest group somewhere down the middle. Oklahoma City is to never happen again. She knows the loss of life is an unavoidable concept - someone will die from the opposing side, and she's unable to control a 60k mass of people all at once - but it's Sheik's prerogative to have the heads of all the assholes who take exorbitant numbers of lives.

"That was a mistake," she apologizes. "I let things get out of hand. I don't condone the Western group either, for all the atrocities they commit down the Pacific coast! We haven't destroyed factories and leveled entire cities."

"They haven't either," Amber points out.

"Portland."

"Link Collins had it coming. The guy was a slimy asshole."

"Amen to that," Sheik mutters under her breath. She remembers flipping open the suitcases that were meant to be full of weapons, and her shipment of two hundred is shortened down to only one hundred and forty.

"How many did you lose of that deal with him?" Amber asks, as if she can read the blonde's mind on the other end. Sheik snorts through her nose and can see his smug face breaking through, a cigar between his teeth, the wolf-like gaze he's so good at putting on cutting through her like a knife.

"Sixty guns at least."

"And these were going to be used for what, exactly?"

Sheik pauses, furrowing her brow. She's unsure exactly why Amber's question is stunning her, but she tries playing over the schematics of her reasoning for being in Chicago.

 _1\. Find out what cities in the Midwest that the Syrenet team is heading to._

 _2\. Determine if President Corrin Etch is in the group._

 _3\. Eliminate the Syrenet team protecting her if necessary to get at the leader._

 _4\. End Syrenetic operations._

Her response is less than perfect. "Well... we were going to-"

"Let me get this straight," Amber interrupts her. "You flew all the way out to Chicago, where your rebel friends will meet you, and you bought all of these weapons to then not use them?"

"On innocents!"

"If you think Syrenet is an all-evil organization, do you believe everyone working in the program is someone vile?"

"If they get in our way, they're harmed."

"And what's the long term goal?"

"End the program," Sheik says, voice cold. "I can't exactly explain it to you point blank, Amber. Something about what Syrenet is trying to do does not seem right to me. Offering free technological assistance without having us citizens not pay some cost... it's too good to be true and there must be some sort of catch! Either the entire thing is a bad apple, or just the person running it, and that's Corrin! She's slimy!"

"So, let me tell you what I think you're doing," Amber enunciates every word, perhaps on her end squeezing the bridge of her nose to fuel understanding to her brain. "Since Syrenet seems to be less than a positive and benefitting program, despite you not knowing just exactly what it does, you think that by bringing it to heel, it can end everything?"

"Yes..."

"You don't sound quite too sure."

"Do I have to be?" Sheik snaps.

Amber sighs heavily. "I just don't want Ocarina's name appearing in the news as some martyr to a lost cause when in actuality it was harmless in the first place."

Sheik almost throws her phone at the wall. She wants to scream at the ceiling and let it crumble around her. The blonde swears that she is not going insane, and can see right through the snowy snake and her lies. Sure, and it is not a far fetched idea, that Syrenet is supposed to do some true good, but there has to be an underlying reason to why three sections of the country are in open refusal of the promise that Corrin wants to give them. Sheik keeps the phone pressed to her neck, choosing her words carefully.

"What are you telling me exactly, Amber?"

"I'm telling you to think things through. Do you really have any idea why Syrenet seems to be a villain to you? Do you have any idea what _it_ does for people that are actually good things, no strings attached? And... what are you going to do if you're successful at bringing the organization to its heel? You just gonna down the commander in chief to one knee and put a bullet in her brain?"

Amber does not let Sheik answer that question, as the line goes dead with the jarring noise of static disrupting the calm. Sheik jerks the phone away from her ear with a near disgusted reaction. So much for that avenue. The static gets louder inside the blonde's head, coming from every pore and demanding it be heard.

Sheik Braring throws the phone at the wall anyways.

* * *

Midna's brow is glistening with perspiration, the agent bent over a counter as she's unable to reach the circuit breaker. After taking two grand steps into the new spot for headquarters, nothing more than a high rise apartment that fits about eight comfortably, Pit thinks he's some electrical genius and his tinkering causes the power to go out. Corrin's groan is the loudest of them all, and she's whirling on the angel, spouting profanities and insults at the brunette until there is no tomorrow. Robin's gentle hand that pushes the president back keeps Corrin at bay, but Pit's blushing and apologizing and asking to be forgiven for his transgression.

After a game of saying 'Not It!' with putting a finger on the nose to declare your innocence, it falls to Midna as she's too focused on the odd and haphazard shaking of the ceiling fan above their heads. _It's going to crash and no one is listening to me! We're all gonna die by a damn ceiling fan!_ Shulk turns on Lucas's disk to give the redhead some help that wouldn't be a screaming president or director, and he goes to take a nap as he quotes, "Life makes me tired." Robin and Corrin set up a miniature office in one of the bedrooms, locking the door and promising to be out before two in the morning. There is business on the rise, is what both white haired women say in synchronization that one would've thought they were Children of the Corn. Midna rolls her eyes, as it's now just her and the digital boy who has more character and life than the grown men she works with.

"Okay!" she calls to Lucas, rising up a little bit too fast and slamming her head against the table she's underneath. She winces, rubbing the sore spot, turning her head to face the AI Unit. Lucas's disk is sitting on a counter in the corner of the room by the kitchen, the blonde boy's eyes closed shut as he examines the wiring system. "It's kind of hard to see, even with a flashlight!"

"I can't manually turn the system on for you, Midna. You can do it!" he encourages, his voice sounding so sweet and genuine. Midna smiles to herself. How can a grumpy sod like Shulk Roberts get paired with the most wholesome and innocent piece of artificial intelligence in all of Syrenet. She is entranced by the idea of an AI Unit, always wanting to have one in the semblance of a wolf. Something about their power draws her in and fascinates her. But it's a silly notion. She isn't even a Syrenet employee. When the entire thing is over, she has to go back to the boring days of being stuffed inside the FBI's muggy offices with stacks of folders as she performs reconnaissance on low-life people who earned that title tenfold.

"Thanks kiddo!" she balances the flashlight on her knee with her left hand, illuminating the breaker in a sheen halcyon light. "Okay, can you see the breaker?"

"Yeah, it looks quite broken."

"Gee, I didn't know that," Midna says sarcastically. As much as Lucas is bright, there's a pile of rocks in every other binary zero to every gem in his programming. "There are a few switches, but their writing is faded so I can't make out what it says."

Lucas's eyes gloss over as he zooms his vision in. "They read Outhouse, Kitchen, Bedroom #3, and Main System!" he then frowns, "What type of apartment has an outhouse?"

"Main System?" the redhead bangs her head against the table once more, stifling a swear that would've caused her parents to backhand her with a flip flop.

"I believe so! That'd wire the lights for the entire apartment."

Midna reaches out and flicks the fourth switch back to the right, the colored square shifting from a stalwart gray to a more luminous shade red, that underneath the darkness of the table, represents a cardinal glow. She smiles slightly, thinking of Roy's hair, but then a taste of Mac's lips clash with hers and Midna's blushing heavily, banging her head on the table. The pain flares up from the spot of impact, spreading around like fungal spores, and soon the entire cranial surface is throbbing with a dull pain.

"Dammit!" she swears.

"You okay?" Lucas asks concernedly, his vision returning to normal.

"Yeah, it's nothing," Midna motions at the table. She tried removing it to get to the breaker, which for some odd reason is placed lower on the wall than in the middle, but it is bolted to the wall and there are blisters appearing on her hands by the crook of her thumbs. The redhead rubs the spots tenderly, hissing. "I just banged my head against the bottom of the table a few times. I'm fine."

"Let me see!"

"It's fine, Lucas, I'm fine," Midna insists.

"Please? I care about everyone, and if you're injured, I'd rather you not bleed out."

"I didn't get head wounds-" she blinks, and then chuckles lowly. "You're too perfect for this world, Lucas, I swear," Midna says sweetly, and obeys. She crouches up against the counter, lowering her head so Lucas can see. The blonde wants to run his hands through her hair, just to feel, he wants to feel and taste the beauty of the true human world. It's been so long since he felt the hard metal of a door, or the comforting linens of a bedspread... the pain in his heart subsides only when he wants it to. He's seen genuine love. Corrin Etch and Cloud Gladwell. Shulk Roberts and Fiora Roberts. _Oh Fiora, even the clouds mourn for you and the grass weeps as your likes are never to cross this planet ever again..._

He examines the head wound. "It won't bleed out, but you should let Shulk or Snake patch it up at least. They're some nasty bumps and cuts."

Midna nods, rising back up. The light above the counter, nothing more than a cap screwed into the roof, pops on, scaring her and causing the agent to jump. She stutters a nervous laugh, opening up the refrigerator. To her dismay - Midna is feeling a glass of Chardon right about now. Rebooting circuit breakers and almost getting concussions is dangerous and thirsting work - all that there is stocked are bottles of water. A wave of plastic continuously flows and for miles she sees the crinkled paper of the label, and the shimmering liquid of life.

She grabs a water bottle and shuts the fridge. "I'll see how I'm feeling and if I feel dizzy, I'll let Shulk check it out," Midna takes a swig, placing the cap on the counter. She notices Lucas staring at her. Not in a creepy way by any means, but with a tilted head and lips parted open. A confused expression is on the AI Unit's face, as if he's trying to solve the world's hardest algorithm and it by chance involves the redhead. "What?"

"I noticed that you're very pretty," Lucas shuffles his shoes on the disk.

Midna blushes herself, placing the water bottle down. "I'm flattered, kiddo. Thank you."

"I've wanted to be able to date for a long time," the blonde says sadly, then he flips his arms over to stare at the pale undersides. "I can't exactly transform myself into a human... so... I just long for what I see."

The FBI agent freezes from going to take another sip. She knows his words all too well. It is a dark and stormy night - at least this story of hers does not turn into a time travelling fantasy, but one of genuine heartbreak - and Midna tiptoes down the stairs of her two story house to the kitchen, as she's craving a glass of chocolate milk, and her six year-old self has not got accustomed to the fact that milk at midnight is not the best thing for bed. Loud, _loud_ voices rise from the living room, which she has to pass to get into the kitchen, and there are shadows dancing in frenzied movements along the wall. The six year-old girl peers around the corner and witness her father, a burly man who could bench press 350, punch her mother square across the jaw. There's no flying of teeth, no spraying of blood, but her mother collapses to the carpeted floors with a wail. Midna watches with fascination, her mind incapable of comprehending that what is going on is not love, but a brutal form of disrespect and the worst type of experience a couple can encounter. However, she's puzzled slightly at how her father then leans down and whispers something in her mother's ear. Her mother responds by shifting her pants - Midna is unable to see that far as the bright living room lights make it hard to see - and then both of her parents are rutting together in a new frenzied motion that the girl turns herself away from as it feels dirty to watch. This is her idea of what love between a husband and wife is.

The next day, she looks across the playground at the boy who's caught her eye forever, as the way his hair curls and the way he smiles makes Midna feel warm inside, and she marches over with a steel lunchbox and slams it against the side of his face. Before she's dragged away, the boy she supposedly likes is ending up with a broken rib and several teeth being ripped free.

Midna jars herself away from the memory.

"I used to long for the wrong type of love," she admits to the AI Unit, who had gone eerily quiet as her mind worked. "Be grateful that you can't experience it, Lucas. It's painful, and it normally does not end well. There are exceptions, but I haven't experienced any of those."

Lucas nods, his face stern and pensive as he's deep in thought, and then his face brightens explicitly. "Why didn't you go with the rest of the guys downtown?"

What the blonde is referring to, is as Midna and Lucas task away to fix the circuit breaker, Snake claps his hands together and asks the gentlemen centered around the room whether or not a bar is calling their fancy. Ike takes to it right away, nudging Marth who is much calmer than earlier on the plane, and soon round goes the agreement where even Mac sullenly says he'll go along just to be with company. The male group, minus Shulk, depart, and Midna knows in her head that all six of those men will stumble into the new headquarters belligerently shouting and shitfaced drunk.

"Well, I got roped into helping you, and I there's plenty more nights while we're here when I can go drinking with them," she answers. Part of Midna's body is aching not only for a glass of Chardon, but also a vodka gin and tonic where the alcohol splashes at the back of her throat with a satisfying burn that does not go away till her neck is on fire with the life of ecstasy and euphoria.

Lucas sits down on his disk, and Midna realizes just how small he is in comparison to everything. Pit couldn't happen to program him slightly bigger than maybe a foot or so? The blonde chews on his lower lip, looking to the ceiling fans that spin and spin as if the revolving manner can joy his memory. "I'm confused..."

"About what?" Midna takes another sip of her water.

"You said that you don't want me to experience love as it is painful," he looks at her, giving a thousand yard stare that spikes straight through Midna's soul, a chill running through her body. "If it's been unfavorable for you... then why are you seeking a relationship with Mac and Roy?"

The redhead chokes on her water, sputtering as droplets splatter against the tile. "I'm sorry?"

"If love is painful, then why are you pursuing a relationship with Mac and Roy?"

Midna runs the question over in her head again, and stutters out a nervous laugh. "I- uh, wow, that's quite a question for you to ask. Who told you that I was dating either one of them?"

"Shulk."

"Shulk?" Midna raises an eyebrow.

"He blabs to me about a lot of stuff," Lucas shrugs nonchalantly. "He says that you and Mac are- actually he uses a far more crude word than what I wish to say, but he says it's also called shagging. So you and Mac are shagging," Midna blushes profusely at the innocent boy's words, he doesn't know, _he doesn't know what he's saying_. "And that Roy is totally cuckoo for you and apparently you may be cuckoo for him."

As the FBI agent is so caught up in the fact an apparent eleven year-old boy ratted out an adult on her nocturnal activities, she doesn't catch the tidbit about Roy and it flies past her ears. "Well, what I'll say to you is that Shulk does not know what he's talking about. If you have any questions about my personal life, you come to me instead. Not him. Cut him off if he starts talking about it, actually."

"But isn't that rude?"

"It's rude that he's talking about my love life behind my back," Midna points out.

"But why do you, then?" Lucas asks, bowling over the redhead's statement on what is rude and what constitutes as generally good conversation.

"Do what?" Midna is not falling for the same trick again, keeping one hand around the water bottle and not bringing it to her lips.

"Shag with Mac?"

Midna lets a groan loose that sinks to the soles of her feet, grinding her heel into the tile as the noise gets louder. She hangs her head low, hair ghosting the counter edge. She wants the lights to bust out again, let the crippling rosy pink on her cheeks fade with the shadows and let this conversation be erased forever from her memory.

"Mac and I- I'm not quite sure what he and I have necessarily. We've only done what you're describing twice. I'm not married to him, and I'm not quite sure if I'd even say we're dating, as I've spoken to him five times tops," she explains. "Mac is very handsome, and besides what seems to be crippling jealousy of Roy, he's what I look for in a guy. He's sweet, funny, strong, brave, and numerous other things! I didn't think anything of him after our first encounter we had, but my mind may have changed. So, yeah... I hope that helps." Midna downs more of the water bottle, the plastic crunching up in on itself.

Lucas nods. "It does!" The two sit in silence, Lucas making another pensive thinking face, and the rising of dread starts to build in Midna's stomach. "I do have one more question, though, if I can ask it."

"Go ahead."

"Does it hurt?"

Midna promptly spit takes all over the counter, dropping the water bottle to the ground with a clatter.

* * *

The loud tearing sound of gauze being stripped fills the patches of emptiness in Shulk's bedroom, the blonde holding the thick tape of white bandages as Midna bends her head to show him the cuts and bumps. Lucas looks over at the duo with concerned puppy dog eyes. A bald light bulb swings above them as the proceedings take place. Shulk can't even remember the dream he is roused from only minutes ago. He sees it still, locked behind his eyes, but there's no motion. A still image produces memories, but not tangible ones he can hold onto and taste.

"What did you do again?" he asks Midna, tearing off a strip of gauze and gently placing it against her scalp.

"She banged her head against an underside of a table," Lucas answers for her. "Numerous times."

"The grown woman _can_ speak, Lucas."

Shulk is unable to do anything for the bumps, gently tapping one. Midna hisses, her hands, which are placed on the commander's knees to keep herself steady, digging fingernails in like claws. "Ouch..." she mutters.

"Does that hurt?"

"Like hell."

"I think the only thing we have for head bumps is ice."

"Ice never works," Midna grumbles.

Shulk backs away, letting Midna stand. The redhead gingerly touches the top of her skull, wincing ever so slightly at each poke and prod, pain flaring up and riveting down nerves and waking synapses back to life. Lucas rises to one knee on his disk, a still all too sweet smile on his face.

"How does it feel?" he asks gingerly.

Midna grits her teeth harshly, rubbing the spot over and over again as if her head is a rug. "Still hurts, but I bashed my head against that thing a lot, so I don't know what I'm supposed to be expecting here," she says to the AI Unit, and then to Shulk, "Thank you. It was all his idea."

"I figured," Shulk makes a shrug with his shoulders. "He's... he's able to tell when people need help and comfort, and Lucas always makes sure to be the one who at least attempts to take care of others. Since he can't physically hold things, that makes it kind of hard, but you get the gist."

The redhead smiles abashedly, blushing somewhat. She leans down to look into Lucas's eyes, the AI Unit backing off as if they were together in some sort of stand-off. Shulk watches as his best friend's emotive state flickers between curiosity, fear, and happiness in a matter of three or four seconds. For a moment both human and artificial intelligence are on the same level, one is not smarter than the other, one is not flawless, one is not messy, but equals in the stare that they share. Lucas shuffles his foot awkwardly against the disk.

"And thank you, Lucas, for suggesting Shulk look at my wound," Midna says sweetly, and her womanly motherly instincts kick in and she seemingly places a kiss on Lucas's forehead. Although Shulk has no idea how that must even feel - if there's any intention of touch between a digital computer and a live body as it is - but perhaps one of a ghost running through someone's body, but the feeling they leave behind isn't an emptiness but a warmth, that someone has connected with them.

"You're- you're welcome," the AI Unit squeaks. As Midna leans down, he tenses, but subtly sees her mouth however over his cranial region. He's asked enough people in Syrenet what their actions were: a kiss, and then a blush surmounts to his cheeks. They're tinged with a bright and rosy scarlet, eyes unsure of where to dance and hold onto. His mind is in a frenzied state, as he is able to understand that Midna has kissed him tenderly, but there's nothing coming in to say it's been registered. All Lucas wants is to be loved like anyone else. Comforting and fleeting words are one thing. Touch is another.

Midna rises back to her full stride, still smiling warmly. "I'm going to see if I can possibly call one of the guys and join them on their drinking escapade."

"Wouldn't your wound make that not a very smart idea?"

She shrugs. "If I die from blood loss and alcoholic impairment, least I died having fun," Midna laughs, and before Shulk or Lucas can say another word, she flies away with a cackle out of the room, her auburn locks reminding Shulk of blood, and then the color leaves his lips.

He stumbles back, gripping the edge of his bed frame, keeping his eyes bared into the floor as the carpet begins to move. _No. No. She's fine. She's not- Fiora isn't- All is- Nothing's good._ The walls crumble and collide into each other, and he is no longer able to see Lucas's sky blue halo any longer, but there is now a darkness that sits there, with a cardinal center that flashes, Jupiter's Great Storm paling in comparison to the dastard effect this red light has on Shulk's soul. He closes his eyes, breathing in and out, expecting to hear Lucas's voice break through the dull roar of blood in his ears, but there's nothing.

Just like all the life gone in Fiora's hand at the funeral.

Nothing.

Shulk reopens his eyes slowly, the noise starting to die down. The room comes back to normal, and Lucas is still stuck in his spot, but his frame is unmoving. His lips are parted, and slowly ever so slightly moving apart, hands stilled to the sides. Nothing else about the room seems amiss, as if the AI Unit being lost in thought as caused the entire world to be doused in a gem of amber. The commander looks down at the floor, slightly embarrassed. Here he is having some sort of hallucination and no one around him is capable of seeing anything.

Something about his best friend's state bothers him.

"Lucas?" he asks. "What are you doing?"

The blonde boy blinks confusedly, his eyes shutting rapidly like an eclipse that happens so fast you are unable to see it. He blushes again - Shulk has seen too many people blush far too often the past couple of days. Cupid is busy - and goes back to sitting on his desk, a look of innocence on his face, diamond eyes mirroring the emotion of frustration.

"Midna told me about her and Mac, and now I'm really confused."

"What exactly about her and Mac?" Shulk prods.

"What you told me."

"I tell you lot's of things, bud, and I hardly remember what I ate for breakfast this morning, so you'll have to do better than that," the commander says. That is true, inside Shulk's mind. Lucas's face creases into worry, and the blonde man has the heart to correct himself and _say_ that he does remember, because in actuality he does. He had a raisin bran muffin and two bananas for breakfast because one wasn't enough. Part of him is compelled to lie, as if lying keeps the world balance in check and that no one will start to question him or his motives.

Lucas runs a hand down his pant leg. "It's kind of dirty..."

"It won't faze me."

The boy blushes profusely, biting on his lower lip. "Midna explained why she and Mac have, as what you've called, shagging. Or, in her terms, sex. _And_ that it hurts."

This isn't exactly what Shulk has in mind as what Lucas constitutes as dirty. He sits back down on his bed, shocked about the words coming out of his AI Unit's mind. He's expecting some sort of cuss word, like 'shit' or maybe a longer expletive on why Midna may call the Alpha Commander a 'bastard', but Shulk has his gears grind. He remembers, the first time he got drunk with Roy that morning he had picked him up from the hospital, that he stumbles into the headquarters for a nap and instead spills the beans to Lucas on Midna's nocturnal activities.

It takes the light out of Lucas's eyes, as if what he is hearing is horrifying and should be locked away in a dungeon miles deep beneath the Earth's crust. Shulk is giggling into his bedside pillow back at headquarters, and now looking forward, in hindsight, his words have come to bite him back in the ass.

He leans forward, hands on his knees. "Okay... so now that Midna explained to you about, well, sex... what is making you confused?"

"She tried kissing me, right?" Lucas asks.

"Yes. She pressed her lips to some part of your face. That is a kiss," Shulk defines the romantic action.

"Is she possibly in love with me?"

"Infatuation, perhaps. You're not that hard to fall in love with, buddy," the commander smiles warmly, wanting to reach over and ruffle the boy's hair. Lucas is the child he's never had, the son he's wanted, the prodigal person in the family to bring sunshine and rainbows back onto the Roberts family name as Shulk as gone through and desecrated all that is holy about his upbringing. "It isn't exactly crazy to say maybe Midna Nye is taken by our two foot tall AI Unit. You're a charmer."

"But isn't Midna in love with Mac?"

"It's not what I would call it, but we can go with it."

"So, if Midna is in love with Mac, but also in love with me, does that mean she loves both of us?"

"If you wish it to be that way, then yes... what's the point you're trying to make here?" Shulk looks at his best friend, not quite getting where the boy is taking this interesting road trip of thought. There's much to be desired sometimes in how Lucas's brain works, given he is to be smarter than anyone on the Syrenet staff, but what he's learned from his memories as a human, to what Pit has programmed in, means that what has been skipped over is added through his interactions with other. Again, case in point, such as the act of sexual intercourse.

Lucas takes a deep breath, and then comes the million dollar question. "Since she has performed sex with Mac, and she loves him, and since sex is an act two people make when they love each other, does Midna want to have sex with me since she may love me?" He looks up at Shulk, his commander, his soldier, and frowns. Shulk's facial expression is displaying beyond disbelief, but one out of the stratosphere at the question, where even the stars and gods above are incapable of giving an answer.

"No! Oh good lord Lucas, no! That _is_ not what Midna meant!"

Shulk's laughing so loud he's sure the president can hear him through the plastered walls, where satellites will get record of his joyous expression. Whales in the deep will be amused, and the birds above will believe a hawk is on their tale. Children will rouse from nightmares as the blonde madman laughs and laughs, the airy noise taken by the wind, and then exemplified by Lucas's confused expression of his own, head tilted.

The commander is unable to keep his laugh in, placing a hand over his stomach and wiping at his eyes. He's unsure exactly what has gone on between the two of them in this exchange, but it has been spelled out loud and clear for him that he needs to start censoring himself around Lucas, or otherwise the poor and befuddled boy will take everything he's been told to heart, and that is a disaster waiting to happen, something Shulk can avoid if he keeps his mouth sealed.

And all poor Lucas can do there is sit there and start to giggle with Shulk, his mind entirely innocent.

Which may turn out to be false. Lucas's mind is not to stay innocent for too long.

* * *

The sounds of chinking glasses fill the illuminatingly lit bar, the cacophonous and boisterous cries of six men clanging together like pots and bans. The clocks around the bar signify that is nearing midnight, and the wild group of six Syrenet employees have managed to run everyone out of the bar. Both bartenders shake their head as the buff bluenette on one end bangs the counter down with his fist and demands for another round. Then a shouting match from one end to the other resumes, a cheeky redhead with hair roaring like an erupting volcano, demanding that there be no more drinks poured for Ike Forgenson, as he's had enough, and in Roy's own words, "Soon he'll be pissing himself that he can't stand straight!"

All through it all, FBI director Snake Karlo sits at his bar stool, head in hands as he groans for the catastrophe he's created here. He's been drinking with FBI employees for quite some time, but apparently the Syrenet men take it one step too far and somehow clear out an establishment. Snake's gun - he's the only one who brought his weapon with him, alongside the badge in case some legal issues arise - claps against his hip, a constant reminder of the obligation he has to the five other gentlemen alongside him.

On his right is Mac, the man partaking in conversation, but his skin is still bright and not flushed red with the buzz of alcohol or the drugged euphoria of madness and insanity caused by vodka tonics and margaritas. He's laughing with everyone, but in his eyes Snake can see the partial disgust, as he knows the secret service agent's been in this sort of predicament before. Throes of people screaming at the top of their lungs, amber yellow streams flowing freely, a slipped foot off of a table, a crash, glass on the floor, blood, and before anyone can register what has happened, chaos has taken the bar into a choke hold.

Sitting next to Snake on his left is Marth, the wiry bluenette reaching across the bar for his fifth beer, but the FBI director takes it from his grasp before the Beta commander can put his lips to the glass. "I think that's enough for one night," the older man pats Marth on the back, giving the drink back to the bartender. As it passes underneath Mac's nostrils, the man's face switches to a grim puke green, and for a second Snake thinks they're be bile and vomit spreading all over this lovely mahogany counter.

"You're- you're no fun..." Marth whines, rubbing his head up against the inside crook of his left arm which is sprawled out underneath him.

"I don't want anyone getting killed," Snake nods curtly, and continues to drink the rest of his iced tea. Though it is his idea in the first place, the Syrenet ragtag team has been at the bar for almost four hours, and it doesn't seem like the fun times are going to stop unless divine intervention from up above swoops down and gives a holy decree. Corrin's words to Midna's question at the conference a few days earlier hits him like the striking of a bell.

 _You're representing Syrenet. Do not tarnish our reputation before we even get a foothold in the ground._

Snake rubs at his face and gives off a loud groan. Mac looks over in concern, then chucking slightly as he brings the straw in his glass of water to his lips to take a sip. "Are you just know realizing the problem you've caused?"

"Yes. And I sorely regret it... Even more than my first wedding, and _that_ did not end well."

A hand clamps down on Mac's shoulder, and the secret service agent jumps, almost punching poor Pit in the face who was the one behind him. Mac reels, pausing as his fist is a few inches from the technician's face, and he freezes. Pit's expression does not flicker, or give away any sort of registry to anything. All he does is blink. Pit has a beer clenched sloppily in his left hand, gesturing wildly with it as some alcohol splatters to the floor.

"Why aren't you drinking anything, Mazzzzz..." With Pit's lack of composure and slur, the name of Mac changes to Ma with an extra Z added to the end, drawn out like a snake hiss.

"I was an alcoholic before I joined Syrenet," Mac answers. "I just got out of AA only a few years ago, and I've been cold turkey ever since, Pit. So, I'm not drinking, because that pathway caused me too much trouble."

"Mood killer..." Pit mutters to himself, stumbling past Snake and falling in between Marth and Ike who are bent over the counter, crying hysterically about some joke between a zebra and a giraffe walking into a bar. A natural classic.

Over at the end of the group of six is Roy, who's seat is looped around the bar counter so he can look at the three idiots in the far corner laugh their hearts out. Snake's more than sullen expression causes him to worry, as the FBI director is someone who seems to have their emotions mean serious things. He's still surprised that Mac even agreed to go, and even sit so close to the redhead, unsure of where he stands because of Midna being a deciding wedge between them.

He is not as intoxicated as the lovely trio Ike, Marth, and Pit, but the redhead has tossed back a two shots of double whiskey already, moreso taking a gander at the dart board and proving that his hand-to-eye coordination is the best in the business. Roy's limit is at three shots, the third shot glass clutched in his left hand as he moves it about, but unlike Pit, it is staying in the glass. His cheeks are slightly burning with the flush of alcohol, but the images in front of him are not wavering, and the colors do not seem brighter than the sun itself.

"Sorry that we've caused a ruckus," he calls across the bar to Snake and Mac, to whichever will react first.

"I'm just getting serious cases of deja vu..." Mac murmurs. Roy notices that there's a slight edge to voice, frowning slightly, but he doesn't say anything.

Snake smiles warmly, shrugging. "I was the one to suggest it, so I am to be the one to pick up the pieces." As soon as he speaks those words, the phone in his pocket buzzes. The FBI director pulls the cellular device out, peering at it. He's had a single beer to drink, and bought a hamburger to go with it, so he's absolutely fine. The message is from Robin, and it seems to be drawn out and typed in a way that only the vice president can detail messages.

It reads, _Sorry to interrupt any of the fun you're having. Corrin and I have been discussing some of the events we have planned out while we're on this trip, and then Corrin realized what time it is. There's a big day planned tomorrow and she'd like all six of you guys back to the apartment so the hangovers can subside before the afternoon. Corrin is glad that you're the only one who brought a weapon, as if any of the other guys who must be intoxicated at this point had a weapon... who knows what consequences we'd be enduring. Walk safely, and don't let any of them drive. Be back before one, or Corrin will probably kill us all._

The FBI director looks up from his phone. "Okay boys! The president personally has told me that our asses need to be back at the new headquarters before one o'clock or we're all dead."

A loud groan comes from the party trio. "She's a witch!" Marth howls. "I just had a panic attack earlier today! Now I want to have some respite and fresh air and she throws it in our faces that has to ruin our fun. Screw her..." the bluenette scowls, clunking down Ike's drink that he had stolen and nearly falling off the bar stool.

"Hear, hear!" Ike exclaims, the stupidest expression plastered on his face.

Snake and Mac lock eyes, both men rolling them. Roy considers finishing the rest of his drink, hand hesitating, but he gives it back to the bartender. The FBI director hops off of his barstool and goes to the redhead. "How impaired are you?"

"I'd be confident in saying I wouldn't trust myself in driving a car, but I can walk fine," Roy nods, eyes alert, but slightly dulled with an amber tint.

"Can you make sure Marth doesn't walk into a fire hydrant?" Snake asks Mac, the secret service agent nodding, although he certainly does not seem too happy about that.

"I'll help Pit. He's the least intoxicated out of all of them as he has really bad tolerance to this sort of stuff..." Roy says, and goes over to the technician, looping an arm through the angel's crook, the guy so buzzed he doesn't even notice.

"And since Ike is the biggest, and I'm the strongest of you three, I've got him."

The sober men split ways and each tag onto a buddy. Snake waves at the bartender with a hearty wave, the man rude enough to not wave back as if that is actually hurting the brunette's feelings, but all the same a kind gesture wouldn't hurt. He shrugs noncommittally and pushes the door back to the outside open. Mac leads Marth through, Marth stumbling this way and that, bumping into Mac's shoulder every once and awhile, but the secret service agent is having a pleasant conversation about the thickness of jellies and jams with the bluenette, so all is good in that corner.

The warm air of Chicago hits Snake's arm, like a sudden blast of heat, and the hazy sky of Tehran and the smoke stacks and cobblestone streets of Casablanca hit him, the smells of exotic dough filling his nostrils like old times sake. The sextet of men - although one can hardly call the group musicians - hobble along the empty streets, seemingly enough the eerie quiet bothering Snake has chills slide down his spine.

It's quiet out. Too quiet.

"You'd think there'd be slightly some more buzz out here," he mentions aloud to Mac and Roy. "It's downtown Chicago, it isn't _super_ late out, and we just came from a bar. Am I the only one noticing this?"

"It's oddly strange, I'll admit," Mac agrees.

"Perhaps there's a city-wide holiday going on tomorrow that everyone needs to be alert for," Roy guesses.

"The whole city?"

"It's a suggestion."

Ike rouses up against Snake's left shoulder, murmuring something into the director's neck. Warm consonants flutter hazily towards the street lamps, a strange homely feeling washing over Snake, and he stirs, nudging Ike's head up so it isn't depilating him from leading the bluenette forward. Snake's gun nudges against Ike's waist due to the movement, the bluenette grunting.

"Dude, is that an erection?" Ike slurs, his voice half disgusted.

"No, Ike, that's my gun..." Snake whispers.

Suddenly, the added and extra weight of Ike vanishes off of the director's shoulder. One minute, there's pressure of a two hundred pound grown man weighting heavily on one side of his body, and the next, nothing. A pained cry fills Snake's ears, and he realizes that there are people leaping out of the shadows in the crevice of buildings, unable to be seen as the light is not covering them.

One man is wrestling Ike to the ground, the bluenette's intoxicated state leaving him helpless to really fight back, the foe wrapping his leg around the larger man in a headlock. Ike sputters, trying to wrench the man's leg off so he can breathe, the leg tightening and tightening like a boa constrictor. The rest of the group is struggling as well. A group of four guys swarm Marth and Mac, one bashing the other bluenette in the face repeatedly with his fists, downing Marth up against a lamp post. Marth goes limp, his head colliding into the metal hard enough to knock him unconscious. However, as the four then do with a lack of prepping, attack Mac.

The secret service agent, who although does not have his gun on him - in hindsight, Mac is taking the weapon with him everywhere - his fists can do enough talking. He swings left and punches a guy in the jaw, throwing him against the side of a building. One tries grabbing Mac's arms, wrenching them behind his back while another takes potshots at his stomach. Mac groans in pain, his face turning murderous as he bashes his head back against the guy holding him down. There's the crack of bone, Mac must've exerted enough force to break the appendage, and he wrenches the guy at the one who had punched him, throwing both to the ground.

Snake watches in fascination as Roy has placed Pit on the ground and is protecting him, fighting with his fists against a foe who pulls out a switchblade. The water in the director's mouth goes dry, and he rushes forward to be blocked by a foe much larger than he is. Roy ducks as the man swipes at his head, the redhead pummeling into the guy's stomach. His foe lets out a gasp of pain as Roy tries wrenching the knife free, it slashing down and cutting his arm. The redhead swears heavily, however not having any time to look at or address the wound unless the next stab is in his stomach and he bleeds out. Roy blocks another swipe of the knife with his wrists crossing together, the blade between his spaced fingers, before wrenching the knife over to the side which clatters against a stone building.

The director sees an opening, as Mac is starting to take every other person who dares challenge him with swing after swing, to the guy in front of him that is much larger. This guy is clearly the leader of the attacking gang, whomever they belong to. Snake pulls out his gun, firing a single shot into the air. Everyone, including Roy and Mac, duck, terrified at the sudden loud noise. The burlier guy in front of Snake freezes, and that's his chance.

He goes for the taller man's backside, slamming the butt of the gun into the guy's neck, causing the foe to hunch over. Snake grabs the man by the throat, pinning him against him, pressing the cold barrel of the pistol against his head.

"Everyone stand down!" he roars.

All the action ceases. Ike's attacker lets go of his hold, pushing away from the bluenette who is swearing. Mac lowers his fists, breathing ragged, and he goes to Marth, checking his pulse. The secret service agent's face is grim, closing his eyes sadly. Marth is unresponsive, but his chest rises and falls. Roy winces as he examines his cut, going to get the knife on the ground, still pointing it at his attacker. Pit gets to his feet, still rubbing at his eyes. Snake tightens his grip, pressing the gun deeper into the guy's temple.

"What's your name?" he hisses at the man stuck in his chokehold.

"Go to hell," the guy growls back.

Mac sucker punches him, and a few of the other men stir. The guy Mac punched reels, trying to throw Snake off of him. The FBI director is not playing any games. "You or anyone else tries playing some funny business, I have a bullet for them. I already shot arms dealer Link Collins for threatening two of my agents. How do you think I feel about a group of nine guys threatening five? What. Is. Your. Name?"

The guy refuses to answer, Mac readying his fists. Snake cocks the gun, and the man in his arms jumps. "Zant! The name's Zant!"

Snake grits his teeth. "Well, _Zant,_ do you happen to have any idea who we are?"

"The Syrenet assholes!" a guy growls, the one by Roy. The redhead brandishes the knife threateningly, ready to swipe if necessary.

The FBI director wants to point his pistol at the idiot who dares to speak, but Zant seems testy and Mac may not have enough time to reach Snake before something drastic happens and the gun is taken from him. "You attacked Snake Karlo, the director of the FBI, gentlemen," he enunciates, making sure to eye every man down. "I don't think President Corrin will be happy to hear that her elite men were nearly killed by some hoodlums. Who hired you to ambush us?"

Zant spits at Snake's feet. "As if I'd tell a government idiot-"

Snake slams the gun against the guy's neck, a howl of pain coming from the captive. "WHO HIRED YOU?" he roars.

"We don't work for anybody," Zant spats. "We're part of the rebels! The rebels meant to overthrow you! And we will too!" the captive hisses.

"And how's that going to happen?" Mac taunts. "You very well can't do anything if you're dead."

The FBI director does not have time for games. "I'm going to let you go, _Zant_ , and you take your posse and leave me and my team alone. If you try attacking me or anyone else here now or ever again while we're here in Chicago, I'll have named bullets for you. Do you understand?" No response. "Do. You. Understand?" Snake twists Zant's arm. "Answer me!"

"Ye- yes..." Zant croaks out, the constant pain bringing the man nearly to his knees.

Snake tightens his grip again, feeling the bulb of the Adam's apple coarse against his hand, Ike starting to wake from his chokehold, seeming to become more awake. "You tell whatever bastard who sent you that I am ready for any rebel scum who tries to stop our project here in Chicago. If they wish to stop us from helping this community, unlike you guys who are causing chaos, they're more than welcome to be on the battlefield. Instead of sending their peons and acting like cowards from some dark room. Will you do that?"

"I will," Zant agrees.

"Good," Snake nods. He lets go, pushing Zant as strongly as he good. Mac gives resounding glares to the other men situated behind Snake who aren't in his line of fire, Roy pulling the knife back out. "Now get the hell out of my sight or I'll start shooting," None of the men react. "Now!" Snake fires another warning shot.

The ragtag group of rebel attackers flee for the hills, some injured, others walking off scot free. Zant stumbles away, and soon the bodies mesh back into the darkness, and their rancid stink is gone from the area. Snake exhales heavily, an enormous load of pressure releasing off of his shoulders. When he fought Link's men in the plant, he knew in his mind that most of the fighters wouldn't actually kill him, Midna, or Roy. With the rebel forces here, however, he knows that since even one of them was armed beyond simple fists, blood was to drawn, and lives were to be lost. Snake places his gun back into the holster.

He marches over to Ike, holding out a hand. Roy goes over to Pit, talking in hushed tones as the world continues to spin for the technician. Mac goes back to Marth and checks his pulse.

"How is he?" Ike asks worriedly, crease lines furrowing into his brow.

"Marth's knocked out," Mac admits. "No broken bones or a concussion, but I'll have to throw him over my shoulder." The secret service agent picks up Marth like he's a sack of flour and lugs him over his shoulder.

"That was insane," Pit exhales shakily, rubbing his arms.

"How's the cut?" Snake looks at Roy, who is examining the wound, leaking a steady crimson, but it doesn't seem that bad.

Roy's face is perhaps more creased than Ike's. "I'm okay. Nothing a few stiches or bandages that Shulk couldn't fix. You?" he regards to Mac.

"My fist hurts. From breaking that guy's nose."

"Snake?" Ike looks at the director, the room still spinning, the world still gray.

The director doesn't respond. "Snake?" Roy urges, stepping towards him.

The brunette looks confused, brow furrowed together as he tries to think. He keeps a hand on the gun, looking around warily at the shadows nestled in the corners. "How did any sort of rebel force know that we're here? We didn't say anything, or announce it on the media," he gives another gaze, eyes frightened like a deer in the headlights. "Let's get out of here. Nothing good happens if we stay."

The group of six begin to run, and above them, a blood moon shines in the sky.

From afar, a man counts the end of days, and from nearby, a woman sits in her hotel room and cries.

It seems that the whole world is itching to play.

* * *

 **And there we are ladies and gents! Holy cow, that was Chapter #21: Itching to Play. I swear to you guys I'm not trying to make these chapters so long! It just seems like the beginning of Arc 3 is as long as the end of Arc 2, so quite an explosive 'opening' eh? There are a few things to cover, but mainly this was a chapter to determine who has a big role, and who doesn't, but since everyone is one place together we'll be getting a lot of hash.**

 **Who do you believe is Sheik's contact, 'Amber'? If you think hard about it and connect it to what Snake now says at the end, it'll help. Do you have any more thoughts on Sheik's parents, and is there some sort of hidden story I'm alluding to. What I'm going for with her character, is that she is a hotheaded idealist who wants to make a change, but she hasn't thought all too much about it.**

 **Lucas is going to be playing a bigger role in these next two arcs, something I'm quite excited for. It also is fun to have some shameless comedy about sex with his innocence as I think he having a friendly relationship with someone other than Shulk can make the world a better place, _and_ happier. Do you agree with Midna's view on love? Her character is going to be quite at war with herself on more than just romance, but that'll come to pass.**

 **It seems like there is much more in life that causes Shulk to be reminded of his wife. Fiora's demise will be cleared eventually, in time, but it'll happen later, a _lot_ later. Lucas wanting to feel human emotion is something that is quite hard to represent, but I'm trying my best. He wants what everyone else doesn't have and it is bothering him to the point he is easily distracted. He had a true friend in Ness, another respective AI Unit, but here there is nothing else but Shulk who cannot necessarily sympathize with him.**

 **Originally, this closing scene was to be the first scene, which would pull out the punches way too early. I want to represent the male dynamic between the six guys + Shulk this arc, as this is where the main comfortable interactions take place. Having Mac and Snake be the designated drivers is fun. I'm trying to get Roy some boosted confidence here, so we're all on a clean slate. I also haven't gotten to show Snake's leadership, so this fight actually was fun to type, I loved it. Are the fates of certain characters at stake, you think?**

 **I have to go, so thank you very much for reading! Please review and let me know what you thought! I'll be posting Chapter #22: Ferocious and Frozen, sometime next week and everything else will culminate. Sorry that this chapter was so long, since I haven't been here in a long time. Have an amazing day! Love you all! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	22. Chapter 22: Ferocious and Frozen

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #22: Ferocious and Frozen. I, as per usual, was super stoked for writing this new addition to Arc #3, which we started off with quite the bang, a focus on multiple characters and scenes I hadn't actually originally included. A lot of what we will see especially in Arc 3 is altered from my original idea of the plot, which involved a little bit more death than what I feel the piece needed, but I digress. There's a lot to discuss with this chapter and both AN's (here and the closing), but let's do some review replies first!**

 **Guest- Thank you so much! That really means a lot! And yeah, Lucas is supposed to be one of the four main characters, and I haven't gotten to use him up to his full potential yet, which will definitely come around the corner. Yes, at one point, the programming that Lucas has, created by Pit, has human aspects, so Lucas 'remembers' being a kid years and years ago before this software was created. It is slightly hard to explain and gets explained actually in a few chapters coming up. There are grammar errors haha, you're too kind, I'm not perfect.** ** _I_** **do try to expand my vocabulary, though. I have been taking a lot of influences on TV shows, mainly Game of Thrones, in designing these chapters, so glad to see that it works! Hope you stick around! :D**

 **SeththeGreat- I thought Sheik and Amber's conversation admittedly had been the weakest, but I digress. Amber isn't a he, but a she. I wouldn't give a male a female pseudonym... it just doesn't feel right. Sheik's hotheadedness is something I really want to brush up upon, so don't worry, it'll be put full and center. Her character development would have to be her becoming a better leader, right? Snake and Robin again are mostly background characters, trying to give them scenes that pull them into the forefront, but I can't find the right place sometimes. Glad you enjoyed it!**

 **Metroid-Killer- After struggling with parts of my writing that I feel like I'm a one-trick pony to where I can't write lightheartedness, I'm trying to insert some more light in this piece before it gradually gets all dark, which it will, mark my words. Interesting choice for Sheik's contact... but I am not quite following your logic of reasoning behind why you think that. Psycho Pass? Is that an anime? I'll probably have to pass, given how busy I am.**

 **There'll be more to discuss at the bottom, once we get to the end of the chapter, so enjoy Chapter #22: Ferocious and Frozen.**

* * *

Steam clouds Sheik's eyes as she takes her shower, hot water streaming out of the cap and down her naked back. Her blonde hair, soaked and tangled, rests against her shoulder, droplets clinging to flesh like tandems of a spider web ripped apart by unseeing passerby's. A loud knock on her hotel room door at two in the morning causes the blonde rebel to jump out of bed, mind whirling, blood boiling that someone violated her beauty sleep.

When she wrenches the door open, she's half surprised, half scared to see a lieutenant - Zant is his name, Sheik remembers as she stares the fellow down - huddled in the corner, shivering. Sheik ushers the man in, wondering why he is out an about. A broken tale of a failed ambush and retaliation attack spills from his mouth, and the vase she had picked up before answering the door, currently in her right hand, shatters. She goes to sit on her bed, making herself a glass of wine as Zant hazily recounts the tale. Sheik listens intently, muttering a curse here or there to interrupt what's being said.

When Zant is over, she's unsure exactly how to respond. It is not in her prerogative to have attacked Syrenet employees after a night on the town; it must've been one of her hair-brained lieutenant's bright ideas that could get everyone killed. She sets her wine glass down, crosses her hands together firmly, and orders Zant out of her room before she gets to a point beyond reasoning and shoots him in the face. When Zant races out of her hotel room with his tail between his legs, Sheik vaults items across the room in a fit of rage.

Pillows bombard the wall, no damage being done accept soft pings of _puh_ and the occasional creaking of the chair that the pillows fall against. Sheik has half the mind to chuck her wine glass at the wall, but it'll only cause more loud noise than what she's used to, and nothing about that remotely sounds fun. The blonde has to talk to herself under the covers before she can fall asleep again. When her alarm goes blaring at 7 A.M. and the sunlight streams through her window curtains, Sheik lets the memory of five hours ago leave her and hope to never return.

She wants to ease her mind by taking a shower - she smells of airports and airplanes and crusty taxi drivers and perfumed pounces who think they know a thing about fashion - and will conjure up a game plan, an actual game plan that does not get people killed, before noon.

In the shower, the memory comes to her despite her protests, and Sheik rests her head against the tiled wall of the shower, water streaming down and on her exposed skin. Half of her body is covered in a cold chill, air particles nipping at her crossed arms. The other is warm, under the bombardment of heated water. Sheik wishes to hold another wine glass in her hand as she bathes, but a voice in the back of her head whispers to her that she'll begin to imagine it's blood pooling out of her, and the blonde shudders at the thought, putting it away in a filing cabinet, never to be opened again.

She lathers her head in soap, standing under the waterfall, and smelling the aromas that waft to her nose. Sheik pauses up against the tiled wall. A thought whispers to herself. _You wish that this could be you. Day in, day out. A fancy woman with fancy people waiting on her hand in foot. Wouldn't you want that? Wouldn't that be the best for you? Cast down this Syrenetic regime and this will be in your reach._ She bites on the inside of her cheek, turning around to wash off her back. Part of her wistfully longs to be someone of royalty, someone with a background that lets her enjoy all the proclivities of life. It is a desirable dream, that of an American one where life can be achieved by working hard enough.

It is what keeps her going, a message to tell herself in moments of doubt as the desire to overthrow Corrin's rule. A constant push. To live the American Dream.

Sheik turns off the shower, stepping out into the bathroom away from the stall. Heat leaves her body as more gelid air rushes to collide into her. A plain white towel sits on the counter, Sheik wrapping it around her waist, and a separate for her hair. She opens the bathroom door and steam spills out into the room like a glass of spirits tipping over onto a clean carpet. The steam rolls over like a restless fog, before evaporating into the lamp lights. Sheik will die before her dreams vanish away and vaporize.

The telephone on the nightstand is ringing its head off, an incessant and annoying screeching caw that echoes off the walls. Sheik rolls her eyes and picks up the phone, the towel firm to her waist. What hits her ears next is more than a welcoming surprise.

"Are you out of your mind?" the voice barks.

Sheik recoils away from the telephone with a look of disgust. "Excuse me? Amber?" The blonde looks at the device with a sideways glance, not having expected such a ridiculous and emotional outburst.

"Ocarina, are you out of your mind?" Amber repeats the question, the emotion in her voice still filled to the brim with anger.

"I'm sorry..." Sheik stutters. "I'm a little confused as to what is upsetting you."

Amber's snort is enough for the rebel leader. Her confidant - Sheik being her - can be felt rolling her eyes on the other end of the line. "I'm talking about the attack a group of your boys did on the Syrenet soldiers early this morning! I thought you were trying to be discreet! If you wanted to alert Syrenet that you were here in Chicago to take them down, you sure as shit did it!"

"I didn't order anyone to go and attack anything!" Sheik growls, plopping onto her bed. The towel wrapped around her head slips off, and a tumbleweed of blonde hair spills down her back, still slightly cold, the touch sending chills down her spine. "And how would you know about that?"

"I have my own little spies everywhere, Ocarina. We've already been over this..."

Sheik rubs her forehead, closing her eyes and sighing. She decides to lay on her bed, feet lightly touching the carpeted floors, stenciling and tracing the rose pattern styled into the olive green material. The whirlwind of emotion that was last night comes back and hits her on the head. Zant's breathless confession, her imaginary pillow fight with the world, a blackness inside her heart, and now out of all of it, she has to deal with Amber snarling insults through a telephone line.

She lets out a long breath, ash filling her lungs, life and hope expelling out of them. "I had no idea Zant and his buddies were going to do a hit-and-run. I didn't hear about it until Zant showed up at my hotel room early this morning to let me know about it."

Amber goes eerily quiet on the other end. "Don't you think that means you should get better at telling your lieutenants what to do and what not to do?"

"Are you questioning my leadership choices?" Sheik demands, sitting upright.

"I'm doing exactly that."

"How dare you! I-"

Sheik stops herself, realizing how childish she must sound. Here she is, fresh off a victory against Syrenet employees and the organization by getting the better hand at Oklahoma. If someone is to paint a homage to the blonde rebel leader, she expects something akin to Jesus riding in on his glorious steed, bathed in halcyon light, as Sheik Braring is bringing a second coming to the United States, a new era of political stability and to drain the political scheme of all its dirty liars and players.

A revolutionist, is what a book definition would call her. Perhaps a terrorist, if Webster is to be so bold. Sheik sees her horse falling ill, a foot going lame and the rider being thrown to the ground, trampled to death by panicked denizens of a country collapsing into anarchy. Jesus's crown crumbles on his head, replaced with the signature and morbid twisting thorn crown sticking into her own. Sheik's eyes are muddled with a sea of red, a dream and vision that breaks before it even starts. She can't hear Amber's voice slicing through her burning fantasy, a dream so convoluted that the Renaissance is to laugh and weep at what has become of their grand scheme.

She catches a sunbeam outside her window, following it and staying true to its course. She pulls the phone back up to her ear.

"Finish that sentence," Amber says again, having already spoken it to deaf ears who did not respond. "How dare I do... what?"

"Forget about it," Sheik murmurs.

Something or someone shifts on the other end, and Amber lets out an exasperated sigh. "I hate being rude and mean to you, Ocarina. But there's a serious discussion that needs to take place, not only in your head, but with the members of this rebel alliance. You're not challenging Syrenet to act like terrorists, but revolutionaries wishing to change the game. Attacks under the veil of darkness where the men are unprotected... not the greatest move on your part."

" _I_ had nothing to do with it!" she tries protesting again, but Amber cuts her off.

"Regardless of whether or not you had any hand in the pot while this happened, the blame is going to fall on your shoulders," Amber warns her. Sheik's mouth dries up immediately at the foreboding words. "Think about it. After the branch in Oklahoma City fell, under your leadership, the newspapers and television stations gave your name out everywhere. They didn't have a picture of your face, thank God, but already others put it all on _you._ Word gets out that the Midwestern rebels attacked a group of Syrenet workers, which not to mention had the FBI Director in it... you'll be thrown into the burner and left there to cook."

"Then what am I supposed to do, Amber?" Sheik asks, her voice cracking on itself, the sound coming out more like a dying croak than a confident woman seeking counsel.

"Get a new game plan. Confrontation is going to be necessary in this, if you ultimately want to achieve your end goal. Just try to not have so many casualties on the way. Did you lose any soldiers that participated in the attack?"

"None that I know of."

"Any Syrenet employees?"

"Same answer."

Amber stays quiet on the other end. Sheik fears that her friend has abandoned the conversation, forever disappointed and upset that her protégé cannot rise to greatness; just another pink slip in a line of failures. Then, a break of slightly appealing hope, "All I can tell you is that whatever Zant and his posse did, has definitely gotten the Syrenet crew spooked."

Sheik does a double take at the phone. "And how would you know that?"

"I'm watching them as we talk. Corrin is pacing in the kitchen of their new headquarters, Marth, the guy who got knocked unconscious, is lying in one of the beds to recover. Snake is cooking breakfast, and the men who are up are suffering massive hangovers..."

"Could you- could you take some pictures and send them to me?"

"Why? So you can go and murder them all?"

Sheik has enough decency to not say anything, unsure of her game plan at this very next step. It seems to her that stepping back and placing the chips on their proper spots is going to turn out better than letting the game pieces fall where they may, with unforeseen consequences, and deaths that are unable to be fathomed in her mind.

As she doesn't respond, Amber says something else into the phone, unintelligible but an insult more than likely, before hanging up. The sound of a dead call fills the hotel room, as Sheik sits there and processes what she's heard.

"Mother... help me..." she whispers on her lips, before placing the phone down.

Sheik retrieves the towel that had been on her head, placing it back on. She goes to the windowsill, placing her hands against it as she looks out into the sun, a gorgeous Chicago city landscape greeting her.

A strange feeling of contentment washes over her.

Sheik Braring now knows what she must do.

It is not going to be pretty.

It is time to get ferocious.

* * *

Corrin stays away from the dinner table, letting Snake pass out his pancakes and cheery smiles. Happiness is infectious, and the president of the United States of America is not feeling all too happy at this current moment and time. Robin is sitting all little away from the main cluster of the group, drinking her coffee in silence. Shulk looks tired, more tired in fact than any of the other men situated at the table who had foolishly gotten themselves drunk last night. She knows that she had sent them off on their little fun 'quest', if such a word can be used in that manner, but now all the silverette wants is a time machine to reverse this irreversible mistake.

Not only did someone try harming her commanders and leaders while they were unarmed and defenseless save for Snake, the group that happens to be the vigilantes is already those who want her head. Damn Midwestern rebels. Robin and Snake's words of reason and worry fill Corrin's ears. They've warned her against this endeavor. To go back into a region that has wished the group dead more times than they count is not wise, to try and install a branch that is hated from the get go with a stubborn group of people... only a fool would do something so erroneous. Corrin waves the matters away with a flick of her wrist, dismissing both councilors and turning to frosted pane windows and caskets filled to the brim with Chardon.

The silverette is standing up against the kitchen counter, fingernails tapping against the porcelain as she examines the sorry group she's hired. All of this rests on her shoulders, every square inch of stupidity rests on her shoulders and the tragedy that is to surely befall them is her own fault. Corrin views the world in tinted lenses, lenses that no one else can look through. One set gives people elongated features that betray what their faces are thinking; her surefire way to call out who is an enemy at a congregated dinner meet, or to clap a stranger on the back because Corrin Etch senses magical things are to take place and it'll be of everyone else's fault than her own should plans go awry.

She passes her gaze from each person to the next. Despite Shulk's sleepiness - Corrin just wants to prescribe the moody blonde with Xanax and let the deed be done, she need not care if he rots away in some ditch for all eternity as long as she's no longer plagued with his depression - and Snake's awful cheeriness, not much is to be beheld by her 'motley crew'. Corrin is feeling particularly sardonic and sabbatical this morning, but she cannot put a finger onto why.

Roy and Mac look more restless than anything, eyes auspiciously examining the corners of the room drowning in shadow. Attackers brandishing knifes can leap from the crevices at any given moment, and all they need to do is be ready. Midna is curling a lock of auburn hair around her finger, and Corrin aspires to one day have a head of hair that had been kissed by fire, regardless if she has to dye it or do some Bizzaro thing to get what she wants. Ike is hunched over his cup of coffee, facing the president, and she thinks he's muttering something into the mug. Creased lines are furrowed into his brow, the commander of Charlie squad deep in thought. He wants to be by Marth's side, Corrin reads it on his face, but it is too much of a risk if someone tries finishing off a job that they started.

Pit has sunken in circles around his eyes, a bruise lacerating the throat and left wrist where Roy had pushed the technician to the ground to be spared from a knife in the dark. Robin has a motherly look on her face, compelling Corrin to roll her eyes. The vice president worries too much on her foolish flock of hens, sheep that need a guide and it most certainly will not be the wilting wallflower that can hardly defend herself with a gun or with words. Lucas is the strangest of them all, sitting on his disc, crisscrossed, eyes closed, and she hears a faint hum being whispered on the wind.

Snake passes out the last pancake, Corrin's plate still empty as she does not want to directly face her band of idiots and losers full out.

"Thank you for breakfast," Roy says happily, swiping the syrup from Mac and dousing his pancakes in the sugary substance.

"No problem. After what happened last night, it is the least I could do."

Robin's gaze flits up to lock with Corrin's at the mention of the event. The president is mystified on what exactly happened. How can expertly trained forces of the U.S Government not hear nor at the very least feel the presence of unruly rebels ganging up to kill them all? The silverette's hands long for launch codes. Just blow up the Midwest and the Pacific seaboard. Make it a dead-end deal for the rebels. Either quit or face nuclear fire till nothing is left but pillars of ash. Corrin can rule over a city of rubble, a ruined infrastructure. She can deal with being looked at as a despot, but Corrin knows deep down in her heart that the real American public will view her as a hero, one of their own, a queen worthy of living free.

"Corrin?" Shulk's voice ripples through the president's thoughts. She glares over at him, the blonde unflinching under her furious stare. "What should we do?"

"About what?"

"The rebels that attacked us."

The president looks up at the ceiling, and if looks could kill, mice would be falling to the tiled floor from heart attacks given to them by a vicious and loving god. She slinks out of her chair like a viper, true to her name given by the enemies who despise her and who'd love to be her. _A vicious white viper that Corrin Etch is. She'll kill you in your sleep if it got her ahead to the Oval Office. Some say she's poisoned two of her husbands by the time she was thirty._ Corrin laughs to herself quietly at this homage. A snake rising from the field brush, with gleaming emerald eyes that appraise her potential victims and a meal that'll be the most desired dinner in all the nights to come. With a quick snap of the tail, she lashes out, and those caught in her mandible jaws, even though snakes do not have mandibles, are crushed without a second thought.

"If I had my way," she starts, pacing the kitchen in her high heeled boots, "I'd bomb each and every last rebel to hell and back. However, that is murder and genocide. I am not here to commit mass murder or genocide just because people disagree with me or my policies."

Snake looks at Robin with a look of delayed fear. "That didn't answer Shulk's question. I threatened one of their leaders... and now in hindsight that was stupid of me. They'll enact on my demands and do it fast, I assume. Any sort of game plan?"

Corrin stalks over to Lucas's disk, snapping her fingers at the AI Unit. The blonde jolts out of his stupor, flailing about in the boundaries of the blue aura. Shulk glares angrily at the commander in chief, but the silverette heeds no mind to it, but instead nodding at Lucas. Her gaze says it all. " _I need your advice on this. Whether I want it or not,"_ and then aloud to the FBI director, "We have to continue as scheduled. Three days from now, I have a gathering where we announce the building of a new Syrenet institution here, a cutting of the ribbon to begin construction. Everyone besides Robin and Mac and I will be stationed around us to make sure nothing happens to us. In these next three days, it'd be best if you all went around the town and got yourselves familiarized with the area in case something horrible does indeed happen. Lucas?"

The AI Unit pales at being under the duress of attention, this much responsibility on practically an eleven year-old's shoulders being too much. He bites his lower lip. "If Snake or one of the other guys could give me the descriptions of the gentlemen-"

"Oh no," Mac cuts the blonde computer program off. "These guys aren't gentlemen. I would've even call them worthy of anything other than scum." He blushes as everyone stares at him.

Lucas clears his throat. "As I was saying... it'd be easier by looking in all the known databases of men who fit the description of their attackers. It could single out those and give the guys who will be protecting you above ground targets to watch out for. It wouldn't take too much time. We have seventy-two hours before it matters. I can get it done in eight or nine without help, less than that if other AI Units join the job."

Everyone turns to look at Corrin and gauge her reaction. The president seems to be deep in thought, stuck over by the refrigerator under the hazy dust of the ceiling fan that still looks as if it'll fall apart in any given moment. She clucks her tongue, thinking of all avenues. Though she has never run into this problem, it could be possible, even at a 0.01 chance hackers can get into Lucas's mainframe and wrack his system up. After all, no one had mentioned anything about Syrenet landing in Chicago to anyone outside of the bubble... yet people claiming to be Midwestern rebels show up and damage things before they even get started.

She darts her eyes around the room. Anyone could be a spy or a bug and she'd have no clue. What if she was one herself?

Corrin dismisses the thought. _That's elementary, dear Watson. You're smarter than that, Corrin Etch._

She shakes her head no, but the words that come out of her mouth negate the action. "Sounds good to me. Snake? You'll help Lucas with this?"

The FBI director raises his eyebrow at this. "Uh..." he stutters. At Corrin's withering glare, he flushes a deep red. "Right away madam president. Lucas?"

The AI Unit turns to Shulk, the blonde commander nodding and turning off the device. Lucas's aura fades away, as does the program, leaving a stalwart landmine of data resting coldly on the table. Shulk tosses it to Snake with ease, catching the brunette off guard as he catches it, not expecting it to be so heavy. Snake gives a wave to everyone else before sauntering off into another section of the apartment.

Ike pulls away from his chair, Shulk following suit. The bluenette mumbles something about checking up on Marth, the blonde eager for another nap. This leaves Roy, Mac, and Midna to sit in their chairs by their lonesome selves while Robin sips away at her coffee. Corrin witnesses a battle without words be waged between the three people of mixed employers. It is almost as if it is the beginning of a great joke. _A Syrenet employee, an agent of the FBI, and a member of President Corrin Etch's secret service team all sit at a breakfast table together..._

Mac is glaring at Roy, and Midna is looking between the two men with hesitancy evident in her eyes. Corrin frowns. Weren't the two men saving each other's asses just a few hours ago? She shrugs, and looks at Robin.

"Could you three give me the room?" The trio looks at her, Mac's face particularly affronted. He pulls at his collar, biding an adieu, and gets up. Midna gets up after, and Roy lets out an exasperated sigh, following them.

When the room is empty, Corrin pulls up a chair and sits directly across from her partner in crime.

"What do you make of this?" she asks. The president resumes to tap her nails on the table rather than the counter from earlier. Robin stares at her best friend's hand, watching it tick and tack away. Scratches begin to form on the wooden surface, lithe lines sliced into the wood making dicey pictures and sloppily 'drawn' tic-tac-toe boxes. The vice president stays silent for a moment, taking another sip of the coffee.

"How do you think those rebels found out we were here?"

Corrin looks outside the window, giving off a glare with enough force to burn the window panes off and have them clatter to the floor in charred shingles. "Someone ratted us out. A spy in our midst."

Robin's face seems horrified by the very thought, a ghastly expression forming with her eyebrows, eyes, and parted mouth. "No! You really think so?"

The president bites on the inside of her cheek till the taste of lucid copper fills her mouth. Why must the world be so difficult to her nowadays? Corrin wants an answer to that question. She remembers when the most stressful time in her life had been dealing with a pimple growing on her nose when picture day arrived, or the sleazy jock with a hideous leather jacket chewing gum against the side of the gymnasium who harasses her day in and day out. The silverette now has to deal with making sure she runs a tight ship with no loopholes, no gaps for water to spill in and ruin everything she had built up in her presidency.

A whisper sits on the inside of her skull, like a nail being driven into a coffin. _You signed up for this. This is your doing. You could've said no._

Corrin knows that she could've turned away long ago. But an iron chair with an eagle on the carpet in the middle of the room sounds too enticing to her at thirty-five, and thus begins her headlong campaign into making sure she is the most powerful woman in the world.

Her response is not very well thought out. "With what has happened to me at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be me drunkenly admitting it on some live television network."

Robin does not bat an eye. "I think you'd know if you did that, Corrin."

"And you obviously do not know what a joke is."

"How do you wish to proceed with this?" the vice president rubs her hands on her dress pants, downing the rest of her coffee. The cocoa vanishes behind a thinly pressed together set of lips, porcelain colored and chipped down the middle.

Corrin runs a hand through her hair, strands falling between fingers and sticking to her skin like coagulated syrupy droplets of blood. She shakes her hand to remove it from the weak vice, confused as to why her head is causing her trouble. "It is obvious that no one can go outside unarmed. Had Snake not had his gun, I don't think Roy, Mac, and Snake could take a group of eleven or twelve just between the three of them," she leans forward, clicking her tongue. "I wish I had those guys' names. I could just assassinate them all and we wouldn't have to worry about anything!"

Once more, the vice president's face is a mix of shock and horror at the mere suggestion of such a hideous crime. Robin keeps her mouth shut, and instead of reprimanding her superior as the wise choice may have been, opts to go down a lighter, yet still rebellious path. "Killing them sounds enticing... but that'll cause more problems. Whatever you say has to truly go. Everyone just needs to agree to it."

"The speech isn't till the end of the week. I don't want our workers to feel scared in going outside. They, however, cannot just go into downtown Chicago in their gigantic suits of armor. That'd be absolutely ridiculous," she almost laughs, picturing Ike, the already lumbering oaf that he is, walking around in a Syrenet suit of armor, clanking like a metallic Incredible Hulk the entire way. "But, they need guns or something like that to protect themselves. I can issue a few public licenses to carry for Roy and Pit, as everyone else should have one issued." Corrin looks at Robin. "How does that sound?"

"Better than everyone wandering around defenseless."

Corrin nods, pulling back her chair. She sniffs around the room, catching a whiff of something foul and musty. Looking down, surprise hits her as the odor seems to be coming from Robin.

"I think you should go and shower if we're to meet any clients. You smell like a dying dog."

Robin smiles sheepishly, her cheeks tinting a rosy pink with embarrassment. "Sorry. I uh... I was calling around a lot last night after the boys stepped in to get answers and protocols lined up with D.C. on safety issues and such."

The president stares at her comrade long and hard. "You're like a mother to them, aren't you?"

"I suppose you could say that."

Corrin shakes her head. "I could never do that. I'm not fit to be a mother."

With that, the president stalks out of the kitchen, leaving Robin Wyndel to her inner demons and worries. Corrin rolls her eyes so Robin cannot see. Let the woman have her idyllic visions and dreams, her psychotic tendencies. They'll be the end of her, the silverette swears this by the holy book. A mother makes foolish mistakes on the behalf of her children. They'll lie to directly in their faces so sobs do not break out from within the innocent soul. They sell their own soul to the man underground with horns and a fiery trident just so the person they 'love' so much can experience happiness that they never achieved, all because the parent never owns up to their mistakes that have hindered them throughout life.

There used to be a time - Corrin hates thinking about it, but it sneaks up on her every once in awhile - that she felt that she had been suitable to be a mother. A newborn in her arms, diamond eyes giggling, hands reaching out, and then she hears the piteous wail. _This_ is the bawling, sniveling piece of shit she's been carrying in her belly for nine months? Corrin drops the child without a second thought, lets the elements take the child away from her and it is never to be seen again.

Now, she looks back.

Corrin misses that child.

She misses what she may have become instead of the president of the United States.

Instead of becoming this monster.

A monster she herself created.

* * *

Shulk closes the door to his room, seeing that the other bed which is supposed to be occupied by Mac is left empty. The blonde sighs to himself at the sight, slightly reassured. He's exhausted from doing absolutely nothing so far in the seven hours he has been awake. The commander is unable to sleep, instead he finds himself sitting up against a far wall in the other side of the room, where he's unable to look at the bed sheets unless he wishes to be filled with a venomous rage.

The blonde tosses a ball up at the ceiling to pass the time, hearing the clunk of the rubber sphere against the plaster roof. Every _THUD_ resembles a gunshot in his heart, and sometimes Shulk looks wildly around the room as if the noise is coming from _inside_ and in the corners. Then, after a few moments have passed, Shulk will shake his head and stifle a nervous laugh. _You're crazy. You're so crazy. There's nothing there, dipshit!_ Shadows blend with the light, dancing in frenzied movements; a breath is given and a life is taken, and Shulk watches the room around him collapse.

He walks across the room and over to his bed, pulling back the messily made covers. Shulk lays down, fully clothed in a shirt and jeans, even keeping his shoes on. He closes his eyes merrily, letting slumber, a true slumber that is not being plagued by paranoia and insomnia for the longest time, and dreams.

 _Black clouds mix in with the stalwart gray from above. Ravens caw, the winter winds blow, and the invisible white world stands tall. Shulk is in a hallway, nothing descript to give away a location of note anywhere to be found. Torches lined on both sides give the illuminating diamond surface a sheen glow of amber. The hallway is kissed by fire. Shouts of animals, lion and crow, fill the air in distorted roars that blur against the metal corridor. Shulk blinks confusedly. Is this a dream? Is he to see something he no longer wishes to see. Is fate giving him a wicked handout, a spell that foretells a death on the horizon?_

 _A snap of a finger, a lock of ash white hair, a blue spear, and the eyes of a king who Shulk Roberts fears._

 _The sound of a horn wails into the night. Shulk thinks it is night. He is unable to tell. All he feels is that the world has gone cold, he's shivering, he's shivering and there is nothing he can do to stop it. A caw filled with desperate noise blasts through the sky. More noises begin to fill the hallway, as if out of thin air there are organisms to join in on the dying orchestra. The commander of Alpha Squad has heard among the mortals of Earth of the idea to pinch yourself awake if you find yourself to be dreaming. He must be dreaming, he must be dreaming, he must be dreaming, he must be dreaming, he must be-_

 _His ears pick up a sound, carried among the wind. Dark wings breed dark words, foul carrion fly fouler messages. His head snaps to the sound, this time repeating against the shrill blare of the gusts blowing about. It sounds as if it had come from one of the torches. Something blurs by, a flash of light in the darkness, a strange warmth, and Tormund's ears hear the discordance before he sees it. His blood runs cold._

 _Shulk leans out to place a hand against the metal surface. He recoils in pain, a cry of agony leeching from his lips as a fire burns through his bones, melting the skin, and devouring the blonde in a ferocious flame. Shulk sobs at the injury, looking at his hand which is a twisted mess of pale and burnt flesh. Black scars riddle in with snow white splotches, an unrecognizable mix of death and life._

 _He sees a light ahead. Shulk is not sure exactly whether or not that what he sees is light, but a trick of the mind created by so many torches. Nothing. There's nothing, it seems like. A nothingness that stretches on for miles and never lets go. He gets to the end of the hallway, a world of iron clashing with a blizzard plain, pallid and grayscale colliding in a battle of the colors and shades._

 _The commander of Alpha Squad looks back, staring in surprise. The iron tunnel, the iron prison... it's gone. Vanished. He looks down at his hand and it slowly mends back to its healthy state, full of breath and life, and as if there had been nothing wrong with it to begin with. Shulk exhales, and then looks wildly around as he's capable of seeing his own breath. It is a pearly mist, somehow seeable through a constant horizon of white sky and white ground. His breath turns into fragmented ice shards of a glossy pink color, that crash and break on the ground._

 _"Am I in some form of Dante's Inferno? A tenth circle of hell?" he mutters._

 _Shulk steps forward further into the white void. Time is not of the essence here, wherever he may be. Light is a concept of mere human thought, not something registered by the brain, but conceptualized and made whole in a place that it shouldn't exist. A form begins to make shape down the line. Shulk cranes his head forward, squinting. A peal of color other than his own body amid this disgustingly clean and perfect world brings a flame of hope to his heart._

 _"Hello!" he calls out. "Hello! Where are we?"_

 _The commander throws caution to the wind, running down a path that he does not see, but one Shulk feels in the very essence of his bones. It strikes a harpsichord down deep into his heart, a resonating ping of truth and light and brightness, everything the blonde is not. Shulk Roberts is the embodiment of death and sickness, a vile bile that spills from a twisted, snarling mouth. There's a glint of steel that flashes in the commander's eyes, a knife that dances under a blade. He sees a face he's never known before._

 _Rugged and near dark amber skin. A gem pressed into the forehead. Shulk frowns. What is this? Does he recognize the face somewhere, locked away in the memory banks that can no longer be accessed?_

 _Shulk notices that as he runs, his feet splash puddles down the line he is traversing. Every time his foot lands, a squelching noise comes from the ground, and it ripples with a line of gray and black and sinister red. He is so transfixed by this that he does not see how he's reached his destination. Shulk slams into the stranger dead on, and it causes him to collapse to the ground._

 _He groans, clutching his head out of pain. Shulk stumbles back to up his feet, and the stranger he hit turns around._

 _His heart catches in his throat._

 _"Fiora?" he croaks. Shulk cannot believe his eyes._

 _The body and face of his dead wife looks back at him, emptily. Her blonde hair is covered in mud and dirt and something that looks like blood, yet doesn't. An orange substance with specks of gray - metal? - flung throughout. Shulk opens his mouth to utter an apology, yet the words do not come. They stay locked up in his throat, a gargle, a gurgle in trying to communicate._

 _Fiora lunges forward and seizes him by the neck. Shulk gasps out in surprise, a hand clawing at her arms to try and pull himself free. She lifts him off the ground, a twisted snarl disfiguring her features._

 _"I don't want you hear!" she snarls. "What stupid thought did that silver headed bitch implant in your head that I wanted to speak to you? Leave! I don't want you to ever come back to this place! You shouldn't be here! You haven't died yet and he hasn't passed judgment yet from a jury of your peers as HE stares at you! OUT!"_

 _Her voice is a warning, and then Fiora slams Shulk into the ground._

 _A flash of light, a peal of darkness, a clap of thunder, and a spherical globule of blood._

 _Shulk's vision turns to dark._

 _Nothing remains after that._

Shulk lets out a terrified scream. He launches forward from his perch, letting out weak gasps of pain as sweat pools down his forehead. He places a sleek arm up to his forehead, the cold and clammy skin causing shudders to slide down his back. He closes his eyes and tries to get the mental image out of his head. He's unsure of where he went. Is this a dream that had all been caught up in his head?

He does not know. He's unsure whether or not he wishes to know.

The commander takes a few deep breaths, his heart racing at a mile a minute. It seems as if time has been frozen, a frozen second in time that he's stuck in and cannot get out of. He mulls over the details that he remembers from his dream, though it feels like an eternity, he's probably only been gone for no longer than ten minutes, stuck inside some demonic world in his head.

An iron hallway with torches. Nothing of note except that the fire burns at an awkward pace, and there is no sound other than that Shulk makes. The pain sears at his fingers, and he looks down at his hand in panic. He wiggles each digit separately, closing it and making a fist, and nothing seems out of the blue. He's fine. Then what the hell did he just experience?

Then the hallway ends, and there is an endless plain. A snowstorm that has covered the area top to bottom, and he cannot see if it ends, or whether or not there's a forever extending sky. Water ripples that spread out as he walks, like he's along a water laden ground that is white and he cannot see. There are so many rabid possibilities out there. Shulk thinks he should stick to drinking water. No coffee, and definitely no alcohol.

His wife, out in the distance, and she's enraged. Enraged enough to harm Shulk, and he's never been anything other than kind and gentle with her from the moment he lays eyes on her till the moment he digs a coffin beneath the ground, six inches deep under a birch tree with restless memories to now haunt him in his sleep. He goes over the words she had spoken to him. Fiora references a silverette - Shulk's mind immediately goes to Corrin. She calls her a bitch, something he happily agrees to, yet it feels wrong - that has not given him permission to speak to her. She speaks of a 'he', and Shulk plays over her voice, as if she's so real and right there and that he can feel her.

Is this _he_ some sort of god figure? The man with the gems and amber skin? Maybe... Shulk is not so sure. A jury of his peers is to judge him, to then forever place him in a hubble of eternal darkness. He's worried about what the future holds. Why did Fiora hurt him? Why has he suddenly been thinking of his wife in a less than respectful manner?

Shulk hugs his sides tight, eyes darting around the room to look at the corners.

Every inch looks as if it has been covered in darkness.

He's frozen in time.

His dreams are ferocious.

A darkness is coming, Shulk can sense it boil and bristle over his skin.

He only hopes that he finds out what it is before it is too late.

It took his wife.

It will not take him.

* * *

 **Well there we are ladies and gents! That was Chapter #22: Ferocious and Frozen. And man, this is a chapter length that I could be getting used to again, a nice 8.5k chapter instead of breaking double digits every time. I can see there being two chapters in this arc that could cross into the 12000 word range if I am lucky and take my ever so slow time with them, but we know me. Ever the one to be fast! *claps hands* There is a lot to cover and go over, especially with Shulk's dream at the end.**

 **Sheik and Amber are a dynamic pairing as a friendship. Amber causes our rebel leader to step back and see the bigger picture. That is something that no other character in this story would be able to do without having to put a gun to her head and punishing her for the crimes she has already committed in the mission of ending Syrenet. Sheik is an adolescent still - I believe I have her aged at around 22 or 23... - so there is a lot she has to learn. But that brings me to the end of that section and how Amber comments that she has eyes on the Syrenet group as they're eating breakfast. Does that mean this Amber pseudonym is a character we haven't been exposed to, or an alias for someone that already exists?**

 **That brings me to the next question! Is there or is there not a bug defect inside the Syrenet group? Word in one way, shape, or form had to have been leaked of the group's arrival into Chicago unless they have stalkers, which I've never written in a story. Corrin is now upset, as it seems like this perfect little world she wants to set up and have everyone use to their advantage is getting f'd up by college grad students who are probably just as pissed at the current system as she is, despite being the one in charge. We haven't had a good, really good Corrin and Robin spar in awhile, so I think it's due time. I also liked inserting some faults that Corrin finds in Robin, which Seth has pointed out, Robin's motherly nature to heart. Will it punish our good vice president in due time?**

 **Now we come to the cincher. Shulk. He's clearly going through some wicked times here. His wife died in Detroit, and here he is in Chicago, which while that is a distance, it still reminds him that he's near his wife's death 'scene' if I can call it that. I'd be affected too. With Shulk's state of mind, obviously he suffers from nightmares, but perhaps not those that are this whimsical. I took the water rippling idea from Stranger Things, as Millie is stuck in that stasis of darkness, and boy does it leave a lot to be set up by the imagination. He is injured, Fiora has said some weird shit, and now there's a guy with gems who is being seen inside Shulk's brain... yet the person never literally exists. What are your thoughts? A deeper meaning, or purely Shulk on a psychedelic trip? For those who know me and my style long enough, nothing is put in without meaning.**

 **My announcement is that I live in Florida. So with the greatness that is Hurricane Irma coming to kill me and the state, I have to say I don't know how long it'll take for me to get updates in. I'm planning for an update for a Hunger Games story of mine on Sunday, and then the Game of Thrones fanfic I started again on Tuesday. If I manage to be successful, the new Syrenet chapter, Chapter #23: Fair Game, will be out _next_ Sunday after all the crap that's going on. My birthday is on Monday, but we have to push celebrations back because of the storm. I'm finally eighteen ya'll! Woohoo! *clears throat***

 **Anyways, thank you all so much for reading! I'd really appreciate a review on what you think is going on and your general thoughts of the story and chapter. There is a whole lot more on the way, and many more secrets that need to be discovered. For those like me in the path of the storm, please stay safe and do not do anything stupid in times of crisis. For those not going to be affected, pray and continue being the amazing people that you guys are. Love you all! Have an amazing day! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	23. Chapter 23: Fair Game

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #23: Fair Game. As I've said on all my other stories, yeah, there's a huge and long absence of only having one update last month in September, and it no longer looks like I'll have the story finished by December. Hurricane Irma hit from September 8th to the 11th (on my eighteenth birthday no doubt) and took me out for eleven days of commission. School started back up and I've been playing catch up with that and all of my other fanfictions. Syrenet just happened to be at the bottom of that list. Anyways,** ** _this_** **time, we've got a lot to cover! We're nearing the halfway point of this arc, and so far things have been bumpy with Sheik having forces go rouge on her, someone named Amber constantly criticizing her, and Corrin feeling that failure is imminent with this group although she cannot place her finger on why. Shulk had another nightmare about Fiora, and hopefully things turn around in Chicago... DUN, DUN. Review replies!**

 **Guest- Glad to see you sticking around! I generally have my guests pop in late and then never show back up, but you're here! And well, you're welcome for that too, I suppose, as I want to make sure there is as much clear air there is as possible. I hope your house ended up okay throughout the storm... stupid hurricane *grumbles* Lucas's reaction to Ness's death... I can only have an air of mystery surround it. And nope, Claus is not Sheik's contact. I wouldn't give a guy a girl name.**

 **Metroid-Killer- How was Irma for you? Us Floridians got the short-end of the stick. And you think Amber is a character I haven't introduced yet? Have you looked at the poll and seen any names that you believe haven't been mentioned yet? *hint,** ** _hint_** *****

 **CrashGuy01- Apparently everyone is in love with Amber and I'm slightly mystified, as all they are currently is a logical voice of reasoning. What if she's a voice inside Sheik's head and not even real? That'd be a plot twist in a half. It seems like that's all you commented on, so it's all I can reply on.**

 **Thanks for the reviews guys! Seeing you all try and scratch your head around some of these things is quite interesting, I won't lie. This chapter is a bit more character building than usual, will have more dialogue between sets of characters than usual, and sort of straight-forward as we haven't had one of those chapters in a while... probably since Chapter #14: Damaged Dinner, I don't think. Anyways, enjoy Chapter #23: Fair Game!**

* * *

"No."

That's Midna's response to Mac holding his hands up to gesticulate at a sign above him. It reads, _The Honeymoon Café,_ with large acrylic letters in a suave chocolate brown. The redhead crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow at him, as if the secret service agent is completely out of his mind, or if he took some cuckoo for cocoa puffs in his coffee at breakfast. After both breaking their separate ways from when Corrin dismissed them at the table, Midna went to take a shower, and Mac worked out; as the brunette jogs on the treadmill he gets an idea. Ask the love of his life - well, Mac thinks she's the love of his life, he's twenty-seven and has been dealt a bad hand - to lunch. While she dries her hair with a hair dryer that consumes a good thirty percent of the building's electricity, Mac is fiddling with his dress shirt and khaki pants while he asks Corrin for a leave of absence for the afternoon.

 _"What for?" Corrin asks, lowering a pair of reading glasses as she is bent over her desk, leering at an official document from the State department._

 _"A date."_

 _"With who? Ike?"_

 _"Midna! Why does everyone assume I like Ike?"_

 _"Everyone does."_

Mac isn't over his boss insinuating he's gay. He isn't. Anyone who has their eyes on Midna Nye would understand. He tightens a fist, underneath the Honeymoon Café sign and underneath all that glorious sunshine. The thought of Roy - _Roy Arcadia,_ he spats, his mouth full of disgust - having any sort of flirtatious experience with _his_ girlfriend rubs him the wrong way. He can see from a mile away that Midna is flirtatious; she flaunts off her sex appeal as if it is a coupon to buy a free flat screen TV, but it still matters in all the world that Midna Nye is Mac Sarasota's, and if Roy Arcadia has something to say about it, he knows where the PO box for complaints is. Mac's fist breaking his nose, that's what.

"Why not?" Mac asks, his voice almost rising to that of a childish plea.

"You took the entire afternoon off from protecting the president so you could go eat lunch with me..." Midna says this aloud, almost at the brunette, but in a tone that sounds as if she's speaking to the building and the mortar around it.

"Yes."

"You're unbelievable," the redhead shakes her head, and pushes past him to bustle inside.

Mac grins at her, doing a fist-pump to himself. Yes, he did it in broad daylight. Yes, he did it with other people noticing. Yes, he continues to do it while the people stare at him. And yes, Mac Sarasota does not care; he got Midna Nye to agree with him and actually enter a place of fine dining without being dragged kicking and screaming. " _She's still gonna ride my ass about it, I can tell,_ " Mac thinks to himself, laughing.

He follows her in.

The restaurant itself turns out to be entirely open save for the kitchen and hostess stand. Milled throughout the room are four top tables and booths that line the side, the stereotypical lacy red and white picnic blanket pattern thrown on top. An empty candle sits between the chairs, the sugar container, and the salt and pepper shakers. Mac reminds himself that if the food is good, tomorrow he takes Midna out to the same place during the evening so illuminating candlelight can brighten up Midna's already stunning features.

Midna waits idly by the hostess stand, tapping a foot on the tile impatiently. The hostess is currently bent down under the stand, possibly looking for menus or rummaging around for a cigarette. Minimum wage these days means employees need as much of a break as they can get, but Mac smiles as he makes six figures and tips lavishly. The stand bumps up a bit, and behind it a stifle of swear words spill out into the open air. Mac blushes at a few of the coarse expletives thrown to the wind, but Midna simply chuckles some. The hostess pops her head back up, a bright smile placated on her face while one hand massages the growing lump on her head.

"Good afternoon! Welcome to the Honeymoon Café! How many?" she asks.

The redhead opens her mouth to speak, but Mac cuts in front of his 'girlfriend', nearly elbowing her behind him. "Two please! It's our honeymoon!"

Midna grabs onto the back of his shoulders and shakes him vigorously while the hostess claps her hands together. "Oh how wonderful! I'm glad you picked Chicago then, as your city to stay in! You'll get whatever you want! It's entirely on the house!"

"That won't be necessary," Mac assures her.

"Thank you!" Midna pipes up from the back, elbowing Mac similarly like he did to her and wraps an arm around his side. While the hostess has her back turned, she leans in. "If you're going to play this game, I might as well join you. Overstep your boundaries and I'll make sure you never have kids again."

"Game on," he challenges her back.

The hostess leads them back to their table, one in the center of the restaurant with the warm glow of the sun hitting the table just right. Mac notices that this particular spot in the house is entirely different from the others with a rose painted flowerpot sitting in the middle where the candle would be, and a daisy stock in the center of said flowerpot. Mac's heart sinks somewhat as the daisy is wilting with drooped leaves and a few petals already strewn across the red and white tic-tac-toe. Mac pulls out Midna's seat for her, which she bids him an adieu, and scoots herself in - "Independence," she claims. Mac calls bullshit. - so Mac has to go and seat himself.

Mac lets Midna look at the menu, not quite feeling hungry yet, nor interested. Instead of looking at Midna, which he probably should be doing, he fixes his gaze on the opening of the restaurant. He feels that one can learn a lot about a person simply from how they walk into a place, but a diner moreso than anywhere else. While the weather could be rain or shine, snow or hail, or even just gusty winds, he learns all there is from their posture, facial expressions, and the tone of voice they give to the host or hostess. Mac finds himself constantly asking the host, with the sweetest smile he can muster, and it hardly matters at which restaurant - personally Italian is his favorite, but the man is willing to make sacrifices - that he's able to get a table that is prime viewing of the front door just so he can participate in his favorite activity.

So far throughout the ten minutes he's been waiting for Midna to look up from the menu - how long does it take a woman to decide what she wants to drink anyways - Mac has seen a punk rock teenager and his clearly frightened mother stumble in, a dad who drags four toddlers on their heels behind him, and a divorced or _divorcing_ couple that he hears them shouting about how they've never loved each other for quite some time. He smirks into the table cloth glass when the couple, still arguing, get their seats only a few tables down from them.

The opposite seat sits emptily as far as he's concerned, since Midna is not striking up any interesting conversation with him. Mac knows he's quite the fairly interesting man. He'd prefer if she were to look down from the menu, but it is their 'honeymoon' and new honeymooners have a lot to talk about, such as what color the room will be for the imaginary children that they're not going to have. Mac would like if he could speak to it as if someone actually has placed their butt in it. He knows that'd mean there'd be hundreds of wide eyed stares all thinking this man is plain senile, but Mac has sent the wrong message for so many years he's gotten tired of trying to get people to think anything other than that Mac Sarasota is downright batshit crazy. He winces at the curse in her thoughts - it's a prerogative of his to never swear though his message to a certain recent confidant broke that role quite extensively - but the bustle of life continues. He sits out another few moments of precious silence, a silence that pervades and sinks deep into his bones as he's never waited this long to get a conversation started. He hails down a waiter, thirsty and quite feeling an iced tea, and then smiles eagerly when the waiter bustles over.

Midna looks up from her menu in the nick of time, as soon as the man acting as their waiter arrives at the table. Mac is having a hard time looking at him straight in the eyes, his outfit glowing a sheen and luminescent white - he's the greatest impersonator of Mr. Clean that either Mac or Midna have ever seen - with a pearl filled grin matching the brightness of his work clothes.

"Afternoon! Welcome once again to the Honeymoon Café! I'm Claus, and I will be your server today. It seems to me that you guys are sitting in the honeymoon suite seats. Are you guys on your honeymoon?"

"We are!" Midna interjects before Mac gets a chance to answer. He mentally curses himself as he knows that he's in for it; either she'll make the situation completely normal or over the top till bugs crawling on his skin or death will be a better option to permanently excuse himself from the situation. "However, the locations I wanted to go were all booked, so he picks Chicago. As _if_ I'd want to be here! I'm glad this all free of charge or I'd be complaining off the high heavens about this place!"

Claus looks down at his feet, biting his lower lip abashedly. "I- I'm sorry, ma'am."

"Ma'am?" Midna raises an eyebrow.

"Sorry," Claus exclaims, blushing a furious red. Mac rolls his eyes at the absurdity. "We'll make sure everything is in tip-top shape! What would you like to drink, sir?" he asks, pointing his attention to the lesser of two evils.

"An iced sweet tea, please," Mac answers.

"And how about for your wife?" Claus asks, jutting his thumb at Midna.

"You can actually talk to me, you know," Midna rudely points out. "Don't speak of me in third person when I'm physically here!"

"What would you like?"

"The best drink you've got."

"Vodka and club soda..." Claus trails off, actually flinching as if he believed Midna would hit him.

"Works for me."

"I'll get that out in a jiffy!" the waiter yelps, and Mac wants to give the poor guy a hug as he literally _runs_ from the table and into the back of the kitchen, probably to cry his eyes out from being put on the spot for being polite and trying to defend the city he lives in. Midna is cracking a smile from her corner of the table, and Mac finds it partly amusing, yet he's filled with a bitterness at how she's acting.

He begins to focus on folding the napkin on the table obsessively again. "You didn't need to be so rude to him. You and I can play off of each other and be as nasty as we want, but he's clearly just some college kid looking for a few dollars on the side."

Midna smirks. "With the body he has, he definitely shouldn't be working here."

Mac rolls his eyes again. "You're going to take it up a new level every time aren't you?"

"I feel slightly bad."

"No you don't."

"It's almost as if you can read my mind!"

The secret service agent crosses his arms, leaning back in his chair, looking at her with a mystified expression. He's unsure exactly why he finds Midna so attractive when she's generally the exact opposite of what he used to look for in a woman. She's abrasive. _Check._ She's coarse. _Check._ She's a good fighter. _Check._ An amazing kisser. _Double check._ She's the prettiest thing he's ever laid eyes on. _A check times infinity._ There's a sourness to her that is coupled with a sweetness and tender heart that she has, and it is perhaps why Mac gravitates towards liking her. There needs to be someone who balances her out and isn't such a jerk.

It's why he doesn't think Roy is a good fit for her. Roy seems quiet and on the down-and-out, as if he's going to implode or break anytime someone barely touches him. Mac heard of the debacle that happened in Boston under Link's nose, and the only reason why Midna is on speaking terms with Roy is because she had to save his sorry ass from getting stabbed into the dirt and buried six inches deep underneath a birch tree.

Claus rushes back in to give them their drinks. He places the vodka with club soda town first, in a tall glass with it being on the rocks. Midna's eyes light up delightfully at the alcohol being placed in front of her. Mac takes his sweet tea when Claus lowers it to the ground. The waiter nods his head, saying he'll be back in a few moments as there is a problem in the kitchen he needs to attend to.

"Thank you Claus," Mac smiles sweetly, trying to gently simmer the harsh burn that Midna had laid on him. Claus's face visibly relaxes, as if an exorbitant amount of pressure is lifted off of the waiter's shoulders, and off he goes again. When the brunette brings his attention back to the center, he sees Midna cross her arms, and she's staring at him.

Midna leans back in her chair, arms folded over her chest, and she smiles. Mac looks at her, confused.

"What?"

"Nothing," she answers. "You exude the likings of a professional, even when you receive something."

"Is it because I said thank you and smiled?"

"People my age forget to say the word thank you. And please."

"You're not that old Midna. We're the same age."

"Still old enough to remember the first Bush administration," Midna smirks. "The _first,_ first one, after Reagan," she adds on.

"I remember everyone's presidencies because we learned about them in school," Mac mutters into his iced tea.

He breaks a Splenda sugar packet into his tea and begins stirring it with the straw. Midna starts to count the number of ice cubes but gives up after awhile as there are far better activities to spend right now with her time, and so she goes back to conversing with the head of Corrin's secret service agency and takes up Mac's hobby of watching the people _waltzing -_ on second that, Midna loves the word - through the doorway. Mac takes a sip of his water, and Midna downs a long drawn out sip of her vodka and club soda, her gasp being so loud it almost rattles the flowerpot.

"You should stop that," he says mysteriously after a moment.

"Stop what?"

"Drinking so heavily."

"It's not that much," Midna defends herself. "Trust me, if you think _I_ drink badly, you should see how much Snake takes in one meeting when situations in the Middle East are turning dire, for U.S allies and for those who actually hate us."

"How many has this been so far?" Mac continues to drink his glass of water, hands grabbing at the table cloth and bunching it up together in his hands.

"Three."

"And how many do you plan on drinking before the night is up?"

"Too many to count," she declares smugly, eliciting a groan from Mac. "Besides, from what Snake tells me, if I am to take up Snake's position one day as the head director of the FBI, the world could use a little bit more of a drunk Midna Nye. Besides, there is one time I showed up to work topless and he had to drive me home, but I think that was because I _took_ something instead of drinking."

"And that'd get you fired in minutes if Corrin finds out you walked topless across the apartment," Mac smirks. He then frowns, going back over what she had said. "Wait. You're in line for the next FBI director role?"

"Yeah," Midna answers, taking another sip of her vodka. "The old geezer can't do his job forever. It'd get boring really quickly. Since I am his right-hand man, for being the only other FBI agent to go on this Syrenet trip or any others to begin with, once he retires, it'll be my job to pick up the reins."

"And what if you were to somehow die?" Mac purses his lips. He knows that the question is painfully awkward, but it must be a question that has to be asked because there are always extenuating circumstances that come up and can radically change the outcome of something.

Midna stirs her vodka, placing a hand under the chin. She shrugs nonchalantly. "I'd like to think that I wouldn't die before I get my shot at being somewhere near the top. If I were, like on one of these stupid Syrenet trips, then it'd go a lower officer than me who has half the brain I do and thinks that he is much smarter than he really is."

Mac leans back in his chair. "You take a lot of confidence in your abilities. I've noticed that."

She shrugs. "Again, I'm the right-hand man to the director of the FBI. I have to be somewhat good at what I do to have even made it in, and especially to have gotten as far as I have. I'm more than just a pretty face," Midna winks. "I use this pretty face to murder, for instance! I know what I can do and I know what I can't do. For example, I know I cannot beat Snake in a fist fight, but if you gave me a knife, I'd slice through him like carving a cake."

The secret service agent lets her ramble on about her myriad of accomplishments, all varying from getting to seduce one prime minister of one country to learn that the homeland had been under serious attack via an underground sewer system that spread C4 bombs, which had been backed by the prime minister she had been sent to coattail. He observes how passionately she talks about her experiences, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the horrifying, but throughout all of it emerges a woman who embraces who she is and embraces what she has become, excited about where she'll be in ten years if not dead in a ditch, and it hits him.

He is one hundred percent completely infatuated with her. They have only shared two nights of passion and a few locked kisses here and there, but Mac genuinely enjoys her company and as she twists the entire world around her little finger. Perhaps spending so much time with Robin and how she gently deals with matters of importance to switch over to Midna being one who'd rather press a gun to your temple than sweet talk you is an eye-opening experience. In the middle of it all is the president, but Mac only likes spending time with the silverette when she's in a drunk mood because her insults are purely vicious and delightful to witness.

Once Midna finishes her rant, likewise as she had done to him when watching him interact with Claus, he's looking at her, head slightly askew, and eyes wide with happiness.

"What?" she asks, downing the last of her vodka.

"I think I'm in love with you..." Mac whispers, his heart wide, and his words filled to the brim with cliché.

He doesn't quite know what to expect, whether Midna is to chuck the empty glass at him and have shards embed in his skin, or if she is to jump across tables and plates and kiss him right on the mouth.

She reaches out and grabs his hand, rubbing a finger across his knuckles that send shivers down his spine.

"Thank you," Midna says sweetly. "I'm in love with myself too."

He didn't expect that. Straight out of the mouth of babes.

Well...

Mac will take it.

* * *

Marth never thought he'd ever think it, but his heart is in pain as he misses Washington D.C. Something about hearing foreign tongues and accents against his ears, that while they certainly are English given he lives in America, it - that being the city of Chicago - does not have the same feel as the capital, with a White House and monuments, and most importantly, there are no Syrenet headquarters around. Primarily how there isn't a Syrenet library for Marth to peruse through, as many of the books stored in the massive library on the third floor of the compound had been suggestions the bluenette himself came up with.

He's currently following Pit around downtown Chicago, losing sight of the brunette's hair or his pallid wings as the technician is running amok all the people commuting to and from work; there are pedestrians milling the sidewalks that do not move when Marth asks politely, there are couples on dates that do not see where they are going and plow right into him without saying they're sorry... Marth wants to know what twister took him out of Kansas and he needs a wizard of Oz right about now.

Apparently Pit has gotten the idea that Marth needs a break - the commander of Beta Squad will wholeheartedly agree with that statement, a break sounds enjoyable and could ease off the stress - and the brunette gains up the courage once seeing Mac ask the president if he could take Midna out on a date. Marth is in his room reading a book in one corner, Shulk and Ike passed out on their beds respectively, and Pit bounds in scaring him half to death. He blurts out his proposal in one fell swoop, out of breath, and Marth raises an eyebrow. He gives a wistful glance at Ike. Ever since the plane had landed, Marth is on alert to having his best friend around him at any moment should another panic attack arrive. He's heard the story of what happened the first evening they were there - last night, actually - and regrets having been no use when his companions and family had needed him the most.

Marth is packing a gun with him, currently in his back pocket hidden by a lithe jacket that he'll whip out without hesitation should anything - _Oh god,_ he pleas, _please let's just have a normal day -_ suspicious at all pop out and try to harm he or Pit. He finds it ironic that the two members of Syrenet who are in the weakest position to defend themselves are the ones packing with the heat. He hasn't fired a weapon since Oklahoma City and holding the cold muted barrel of onyx steel is foreign his hands as he holsters the weapon.

Corrin's hands are feeble tree branches that latch on as she hugs him, actually and physically keeping him connected to her while they embrace. A sense of warmth pervades the two of them, and Marth smiles at the president. He hasn't shown genuine affection to her in quite a long time, he realizes, with having combating PTSD coupled with stress... there hasn't been a cheery Marth Lowell going around Syrenet lately, and maybe this afternoon excursion will bring this back to light.

As the bluenette is caught up in his thoughts, he looks around wildly to see he's lost Pit again.

"Pit! Wait up," he shouts out after catching a mere glimpse of a white wing and a curly lock of brown hair. Marth scrambles through the crowds walking amid the street signs and lamp posts, muttering sorry words for whoever's shoes he tramples or whatever people he knocks into the dirt. He doesn't have Ike around to reassure him that everything will be okay, and he's afraid that using the gun will reveal that he simply isn't capable of it anymore.

Marth does not have to work that hard to catch up to the brunette, who is currently stopped in front of a door looking upwards, a huge grin on his face. Pit turns to look at the bluenette, his smile widening. "Found it!" he exclaims, throwing his hands up in the air happily.

The commander of Beta Squad follows his gesture and looks up, nearly tearing up at the sight. In a gorgeous calligraphy, reads, _Barnes and Noble Book Store._ Pit asked Corrin for the afternoon so he could take Marth to get a book, or books since the bluenette knows by pure principle that he'll buy out the entire store if he has to just for a piece of home to remain with him.

"You wanted to take me to a book store?" he asks after letting the revelation sink in.

Pit nods eagerly. "Yep! I thought that it'd do you some good to get out of that makeshift prison and let yourself loose. What better place than where your favorite things on Earth are located?"

"I wish Ike could be here."

"Well he's dead asleep from nearly getting choked out last night, so come on!" Pit scrambles over the fact he mentioned a life-threatening fight acting like he got away entirely unscathed, and merrily skips his way inside. Marth rubs his eyes to make sure he saw everything right. Pit... Pit Icarus, who at the moment could contest AI Unit Lucas for the happiest person on Earth, _skipped_ inside a building in broad daylight where other people can see him.

Marth rubs his neck sheepishly, blushing heavily, and follows him in.

The first thing he is hit with is the smell, the smell of dusty pages and old weathered leather. The sounds of rustling paper against fingers, the clicking of a mouse to signify the purchase of a book... Marth doesn't miss Washington D.C; he's found a new home sitting in the Barnes and Noble bookstore in downtown Chicago. What else could spell a perfect afternoon? At this thought, his stomach growls. Lunch would be nice.

Shelves upon shelves of books are stacked up to the ceiling, wall to wall, and Marth nearly wants to cry. After such disasters like _The Prince of Agrarian Tides_ \- Marth shudders at the thought of that book; he'll never read such a stupid title like that ever again, and mark his words he'd let someone put a bullet in his skull if he does otherwise - he's been feeling like buying an entire new bookcase for novels that'll last him a month.

It is always something his mother nagged him on as a kid. She'd take him with her to buy a book at the store and on the way home he'd have read half of it already and wasted her money because he never had anything better to do. Talking isn't a strong suit of Marth's childhood, which he is constantly inclined to agree as conversing is painful and he never liked his mother to truly begin with, so he picks up something to deal with literature and walks into a world that he never comes back out of. It's perfect.

Marth is home.

Pit looks around the bookstore for a minute, then walks back over to his friend. "Any section you'd like to start at? Corrin gave us till eight when dinner is ready for us to do whatever we want. I brought lunch with us," at this he shrugs the backpack loped around his shoulders, a backpack Marth hadn't even noticed because he had been so focused on making sure he didn't get lost in the tarmac hubble of Chicago, Illinois. "Ham and mayo sandwiches, so I didn't need silverware. What do you think?"

The bluenette looks around, chewing on the inside of his cheek. The skin tears away and he tastes the lucidness of copper in his mouth, but this time it isn't a feeling of strangeness or terror that seizes him. He's spilling blood in a manner of his curiosity, and he's willing to let pain be inflicted should it help him decide what next Michelangelo work on paper will be his next read.

"How about the murder mystery section?" he suggests. Marth finds it ironic that he'll read a Jason Bourne novel and not be fazed by it, but all of a sudden, and now more than ever, takes flight at the sound of a gunshot or see anything remotely related to dead bodies.

Pit wrinkles his nose in apparent dislike. "Murder mysteries? Shouldn't we start at like... kindergarten books and then work our way up?"

"Do I look like I'm five to you?" Marth retorts. The brunette opens his mouth to speak, but a hand cuts him off. "Never mind. Don't answer that, it wasn't a question that needed an answer," he sighs. "Besides, the mystery part is what keeps me engaged. Not the killing."

The angel gesticulates a hand motion out to that section of the store, bowing low. "Well, Mr. Lowell, the store is yours. Go read to your heart's content!"

In his heart, Marth understands that this is perhaps one hundred percent childish, but the bluenette feels himself speed walking over to the section and diving into the alley of oak and musty leather. Pit trails behind him, taking his time to glance at such titles this way and that, but not picking one. Marth runs his hands over some of the book spines, relishing in the coarseness as his fingers plait up and down the spine. He picks one out in the middle section of the third bookshelf; the title reads _Phantoms of Ice and Fire,_ and the cover despite having the mention of two earthly elements is a hard pitch black midnight color.

He holds the book in his hands and flips to the last page, seeing the word count. It is hefty in his grasp, almost tumbling to the floor. The book marks in at a whopping 999 pages - Marth scoffs at the number, the author must've been lazy as all literal hell to not reach a thousand - so he judges that it'll take him a good fifteen days or so if he paces it correctly.

Marth looks at the back cover to read the summary, his eyebrows lifting up at the intriguing promise.

 _The darkest night to come invades. The king betrays. The angels and demons plan. The gremlin wishes to be redeemed, an oracle seeks peace. The small child feels alone, the mother and father desire a need. The Long Night has come, one beautiful home soon to be undone. A dragon in the sky, a burning sword in the light. A king on a ruined throne, a queen buried beneath five inches of ice and snow. A song to be sung by ghosts._

Chills run down his spine, and he sits down immediately, turning the book back over to read the first page. His back presses up against the bookshelf he had gotten the book on, Marth smiling as he makes himself comfortable. Pit looks over and sees he already had picked a book, and Marth watches him waltz - _waltz,_ Marth thinks idly, _is quite a fancy word for a not so fancy man_ \- to him. The technician is holding something much smaller in his hands, and the bluenette cannot see what title is by the angle, but he'll probably get that read in a few hours if he asks.

"What book did you pick?" Pit asks after a few seconds of silence.

"It's called the Phantoms of Ice and Fire," Marth answers, looking over the copyright page. His thumb rests on the cover, and he shuts it, putting it down by his side. "I can't look at it now, otherwise I'll read the entire thing here and forget that we have a place to be. What did you pick?"

"Something called The Pacific Depths."

"That sounds interesting."

"Do you want to go and buy the book?"

Marth shakes his head in dissent. "Not yet," he responds. "I'd like to just sit here and feel the homeliness around. I don't know why I'm so fascinated with literature and what it has brought me. I am everywhere and nowhere when I read, seeing and visualizing only what's on the paper in front of me. It's- it's so hard to describe, Pit."

He looks down at his arms, staring ostentatiously at the fading circlet of bruises rounding his arm. Ike's words still sting with him, on how he needs help and how he needs to try and find a way to somersault over the problems life has been giving him. If it were so easy, Marth would throw his hands up in the air and loudly proclaim that he is messed up and hope to God something finds him and saves him from his misery. Except, as the commander has sadly found out, one goes and seeks the peace they need, they go the grave to speak to the deceased relative or best friend, they write the novel with all their past experiences sitting in their head unless the nightmares claw them awake. They have the child they've always wanted, the father they've never had... and Marth is unsure what path of recovery he has to take should he ever wish to get better.

The commander realizes with a slight sense of hope that he hadn't had another meltdown in two days from when Ike calmed him down on the plane. He hasn't had another nightmare in over two evenings nor as he caught himself and gotten hung up on his imperfections and the things he lacks when it comes to the group chemistry as a whole. Being in a library has always brought out his voice of philosophy of self-image, but sometimes the scars linger _after_ the fact and there's nothing he can do but cry into his pillow where the sheets hear him for comfort.

Marth looks at Pit, who unlike him is actually reading away at his novel. It seems to be a little thinner than his is, perhaps sitting around 600 or 700 pages, and Marth smirks to himself knowing it'll take the brunette figurative years till the book is finished. A sudden desire burns in Marth's gut, and he looks back at the technician, frowning.

Before he can help himself, Marth opens his mouth.

"Pit?" he asks.

"Yeah?" the brunette looks up, mirroring the commander's actions.

Marth rubs a hand alongside his jeans, the butt of his gun slightly painful to his backside. "Do you think I'm destined for failure on this mission?"

Pit's face changes from having his listening ears open to a twisted scowl. "No! What asshole told you that? Who is he?"

The commander holds up a hand, silencing the angel. "No one told me anything, Pit. I get philosophical in libraries and bookstores, and since I'm sitting here doing nothing I may as address the elephant in the room."

"I don't think there is any elephant in the room."

" _There's_ always one, Pit. Something that has happened between two people or more in a setting that has not been addressed with some context later on down the line is an elephant in the room. So, we have one," Marth corrects.

"Well, what are you referring to, then?" Pit crosses his arms. His face is not one bent in anger anymore, but it isn't complacent and relaxed either. The brunette's brow is pent up, eyebrows furrowed together, eyes narrow. Marth tries to picture the mechanizations going on his head, like revolving clockwork that cannot figure out for the life of him what the bluenette's deal is.

Marth generally has that affect on people.

"My panic attack."

"Everyone gets them."

"Mine was embarrassing."

"I wouldn't call it a proud moment, no," Pit agrees. "But, why are you asking this Marth? I'm not a psychiatrist, and I'm only going to give you positive answers as my friend."

"I'd much prefer if you'd lie."

"Marth!"

The bluenette throws his hands up again to quiet the boisterous human on the other side of the alley of books. There he goes once again, opening and running his mouth and ruining something that could be particularly constructive if he were to just listen. Marth digs his nails on his right hand into his left arm. Not enough pressure to cause pain, but enough to remind him what can and will happen should he go too far.

"Ike wants me to talk to someone about my depression," he says it at face value. Pit starts to protest that he - Marth - is perfectly okay and shouldn't listen to everything Ike always has to say, but the commander interrupts him. "Pit, I have PTSD over getting shot at and nearly blown up in Oklahoma. I wake up from nightmares screaming and crying. I've fallen down stairs and bruised my arms because of my night terrors. I had a panic attack when we arrived here because I couldn't deal with this exorbitant amount of pressure on my shoulders," he lists the strikes against him, and almost scoffs at the temerity of his answers; Marth Lowell may have forever gone off the deep end and cannot come back at this rate. "So, yes, I think I'm able to say I'm depressed."

"I'd listen to you if you ever came to me to talk about your problems..." Pit whispers, his voice sounding slightly full of hurt.

"You are!" Marth assures him. He leans his head back, not minding the hard clunk of his skull to wooden shelves.

"What did you used to do when these problems came up?"

"I've only been feeling like shit for a few months."

"Oh."

Marth rubs his chin. "If I was younger and was going through this, like I am now, I'd probably have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge by this point. The younger we are, the more irrational we are, and as I've aged up, my first response is to let everything naturally flow through me," he says. "I can't put my finger on what I do after my nightmare spell passes or once I'm tired after exhausting my body out from all the yelling and violent movement... I soothe myself back to sleep. It isn't real. I can't be hurt unless I willingly put myself in harms way."

"You're on a Syrenet mission," Pit states at point blank. "You are in one of the most hated groups in all of America, by one of the most polarized times in America with the strangest president we've had in our country in quite some time... you're in harms way."

"Gee Pit, thanks for the confidence booster," Marth snickers.

The brunette shuffles in his place awkwardly. "Does Corrin know?"

"About my depression?" A curt nod. "Yeah," Marth nods. "Ike mentioned my struggles to her, and then my outcry at the meeting with everyone back in D.C kinda put it out there for everyone to see, so..."

"And why hasn't she done anything about it?"

"Like what?"

Pit shrugs. "I dunno... take you to see a specialist?"

"Corrin Etch could slap me a thousand times across the face and it still wouldn't be enough to snap me out of whatever problems I'm having. After this mission, I think I'll politely tap out and work in the technical side of Syrenet. There is probably hundreds of applicants who could take my spot at the drop of a hat."

"I wouldn't like that," Pit blurts out.

"Wouldn't like what?" Marth raises an eyebrow at the sudden statement.

"If you were to be replaced..." the brunette rubs his shoulder. "We're a family, I think. We're all dysfunctional as hell, I know, but it works. Robin and Corrin butt heads, Snake acts like a mentor to us all, Shulk is the drunk uncle that is infamous around everyone, Lucas is the child we look after... Ike is the big brother..." Once again, another shrug of the shoulders. "Losing any singular person on said family would require it to be shut in infamy. Once you lose a brother or a sister, you can't get another one back."

Marth looks at Pit with an amazed expression on his face. His words hit home with him. The bluenette tries thinking about it on a grand scheme of things. Whenever he needs guidance and a shoulder to cry on, he goes to Ike, who fulfills a brotherly role by putting him out of harms way and dealing with the bullies that present themselves. Shulk has got the drinking thing down pat, and certainly does spout out some weird shit like an uncle does at family reunions since he's been once or twice removed from the picture. Lucas smiles and kicks the dirt around his AI Unit disk because he says things that the blonde thinks are downright cute, when in actuality they are so far out of the zone of thought that Shulk reels Lucas back in.

Corrin, Robin, and Snake all fill in some role of being parental and nursing a hurt chick under their wing. The latter two more than the former, Marth chuckles to himself, as unless the silverette president is halfway through a bottle of tequila sitting in her belly and it is the winter solstice does she usually not care about any of the Syrenet employees' feelings. It is the way of the game, and Marth smiles at the fact.

It's true, he realizes suddenly.

Syrenet is a gigantic family, that even at times when they are spread apart come back to the center and feel full again. Being away from the group even for a few hours and only a couple of miles away from the compound is like a lover Marth is unsure he'll ever see again. It is the feeling of relief when having feet touch soft and similar ground that is so homely it is like he's never been gone. Remove one from the picture, and it is a void, a gap that will never be able to be patched. Marth is unsure where Roy, Mac, and Midna fit into the picture, because Marth has never had to deal with them till they arrived, but they add something nonetheless and the commander is grateful.

He's unsure what he is expecting to come out of this conversation with Pit, but had he looked back on it maybe ten minutes ago, there wouldn't be warm butterflies flying in his stomach.

"Thanks, Pit," he smiles.

Pit nods. "I guess getting you off the compound was a good thing."

"I'd say moreso for the new book!" Marth smirks. Pit makes another sound of indignation and the bluenette laughs gently. "I kid, I kid."

"How much is your book anyways?"

Marth flips it over to see the cover. "Twenty."

Pit's eyes bug out of his head. "Uhh... I'm using President Corrin's credit card. If she finds out that we've spent nearly forty bucks on literature, I'm afraid we'll get our pink slips."

The commander of Beta Squad clicks his tongue in annoyance. No one is going to insult the great name of literature ever again in his presence should the president actually pull something juvenile like that. "If Corrin has a problem with me buying a book, she can file a complaint. It's called my fist connecting with her teeth," Pit laughs at this, and Marth makes a serious face with his chin pointed down. "If you think I'm not serial, I'm one hundred percent serious."

The two lock eyes, and Marth cannot keep the game up any longer, the two men collapsing into a heap of laughter, so much laughter that their stomachs hurt.

Life is good, even for only this brief moment.

Game on Chicago.

Game on.

* * *

 **And there we are ladies and gentlemen! That was Chapter #23: Fair Game, of Syrenet. I realize that it has been a long time since I've only had a two scene chapter in this story (usually we have three to upwards of five, such as Damaged Dinner), so I thought it'd be good to give us slightly more expansion on some characters yet to really get a lot of primetime, or in Marth's case, slight neglect. Pit, Midna, and Mac are slowly rising in some of my favorites of the story (so far Corrin and Shulk share that top spot) But I'm more than happy to have a feel good chapter in quite some time! Though Marth's discussion was serious, given depression and PTSD is no easy topic, he's comfortable and can share how he feels.**

 **I had a blast writing Midna and Mac, two equals who get under each other's skin so much in a parlay of wits and the mind. And sorry Metroid-Killer and my guest, Amber cannot be Claus as Claus is here as the waiter on Mac and Midna's 'date', as this was decided quite sometime ago. The alias of Amber shall still remain a mystery. I hope that their relationship seems believable; they're verging on being friends with strings attached, but on the cusp of actually dating if Midna could see past her ego.**

 **Marth and Pit were a breath of fresh air too. I don't recall the last time showing Marth as more than a man with problems surrounding war, so I need to bring up his huge love for literature! As I am a huge proponent of reading and fiction, clearly by this being a huge passion of mine, it is some self projection here on how I turn into an entirely different person when opening up a novel. Can you find the Easter Eggs hidden in their section about the books and how it relates to my profile? Brownie bonus points and a cookie if you do! Also, do you all see some metaphorical foreshadowing in Marth's section? Any ideas you have, currently sound them off below.**

 **I am planning on releasing the next Syrenet chapter probably sometime next week, since I have stuff planned for this weekend and can't fit a Syrenet chapter in the schedule. Chapter #24: Braring's Scheme, is going to be quite the doozy. Who has the last name of Braring, if you can recall? Plots are afoot! And quick question, to spare me the time, who is your favorite character of the arc so far? Some arcs strengthen certain characters, like Link being a favorite of Arc 1, and Corrin/Shulk being a favorite of Arc 2, so who is the frontrunner for you guys in Arc 3? Interested to see ya'll give me an answer.**

 **Thank you so much for reading! I hope you all have an amazing day! I love you all so much! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	24. Chapter 24: A Fool's Scheme

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #24: A Fool's Scheme. I imagine that everyone must be so surprised that I'm actually updating in like three days time, but that's because I really,** ** _really,_** **want to get our next chapter that is going to be quite the fun little world to write. Last time, it was a pure connection episode of two conversations with Midna and Mac on a 'date' and there was a lovely discussion between Marth and Pit on novels and with light heartedness that turned slightly serious as Marth opens up a bit to someone who probably wouldn't otherwise have a conversation like that with him - and I personally enjoyed having Marth get on a soapbox with someone other than Ike - turning out to be more screen time for our technician. We are almost near the midpoint of the arc, and near the end will things take a turn for the worst, mark my words. It has been a fun few days getting all of this stuff out. Review replies!**

 **Guest- We won't be seeing any more of Claus. There is a poll on my profile (I don't know if you're able to see it or not for not having an account) and it has a list of main characters. If that character's name appears, they're main, and appear more than once. Claus isn't on it, he's not there. I am glad to see you have a little liking towards him, but Claus isn't any of the story besides that little cameo. Glad to know your house is okay! And thank you for the compliment, it means a lot!**

 **SeththeGreat- Ding, Ding! You're correct! A winner is you! Marth's book was called Phantoms of Ice and Fire, with a switched around summary for context, and Pit's was titled Pacific Depths, which was Brinstar Depths. Marth lacks self-confidence, that very there is evident. He is technically supposed to be the one making sure nothing goes wrong, and he's terrified quite literally that something will go wrong and won't be able to stop it.**

 **Metroid-Killer- Interesting progression of thoughts... perhaps I should've kept my mouth shut. And even though you missed the mark quite entirely on the story reference, you gave an amazing insight I hadn't thought of before. I do love character building, and even all the way into the finals bits of a story, you can still triumph over one more hurdle and throw in a last tidbit about a character in the end. Why did you think the burning sword represented Roy? Curious to that. You find Corrin to be a queen? I didn't know you liked her character that much. I haven't given her a lot of time in this arc, and I feel bad about it. I'll have to change that.**

 **Thank you all for reviewing! Please enjoy Chapter #24: A Fool's Scheme.**

* * *

The night is quiet. Roy notes this to himself as he's laying up on the roof of the makeshift headquarters, his back against the shingled roof, eyes gazing upwards at the stars. A band of darkness spreads across the sky, and there's not a sound to be heard. No car alarms, no crickets, no clamoring of people inside their homes, or even the bustle of Chicago that seems so far away. The redhead is unsure exactly when he had a complete spell of utter silence. The last time may have been in the hospital, having had no one to visit him except Midna and then Ike and Pit a few days after her. There he sat in a bed, upright, his tears acting as stalwart company. He's learns a lot about himself in that solitary week, and it all comes crashing down to be released, heal fairly well, and then be thrown right back into the action again.

Two days from now is the big day. Corrin calls it that at dinner, using quotation marks to emphasize her point in what is going to be Syrenet's make or break it moment in Chicago. Roy surmises the details over in his head; Corrin and Robin are to give a huge speech somewhere downtown, while Snake and the rest of the gang are to make sure no one attacks them. Should the speech go well, Corrin and Robin proceed to the mayor's office and discuss getting the groundwork up. There's a talk that the same group stuck in Chicago for the past few days are being pushed onto another mission in some forsaken city a little further west and north of their current location, but it's all talk and only circulating between Mac and Ike at the current moment.

A noise shifts off, causing Roy to turn around. Another familiar peal of scarlet hair comes into view, and he visibly relaxes. Part of him is content with the fact that the person joining him is _them,_ and the other half is worried as he's pretty sure Mac's fist connecting to his face will be a wound he'll never be able to wash out. Midna Nye's powerful aura joins him on the roof, her head appearing over the last rung of the ladder.

"Oh..." she says quietly. "I thought there wouldn't be anyone up here."

"Do you need an escape too?" Roy questions, looking back at her and then upwards at the sky. He wants the silence to continue, but asking Midna to be quiet is like putting stockings on a mule or lipstick on a pig. The redhead is taken aback by the gorgeousness of the nature before him, with supernovas decorating the black void of space, to cotton candy clouds, and colorful auroras that dance from one pole to the other. He shifts over when Midna lays down next to him, noting how she lowers herself to the ground arms first like she's going to do a pushup, before spinning around in some crazed move.

He rolls his eyes, Midna catching the movement. "What?" she asks defensively.

"You always go the extra mile and make things completely unnecessary," Roy answers. "Sometimes it isn't needed."

"I bother you with that?"

"Quite."

"Then why haven't you said anything?"

Roy blinks at her as if she's grown a fourth head. "I've only known you for less than a month. It's rude to say that to someone before really getting to know them."

Midna takes a shot at rolling her eyes. "It was rude for you to tell me that. And it's been longer than a month."

He ignores her, staring out into space, feeling the breeze and the simple calmness of the generally busy world around him. Roy has had a relatively tame day compared to most, to where he's seen Pit fix one of the Automatic Army machines, watched Ike drunkenly arm wrestle with Snake, and see Shulk eat an entire hoagie sandwich in a matter of a minute, only for the blonde commander to vomit it all up afterwards.

There's an awkward silence between them; the last they had spoken to each other had been on the plane. Midna's abusive ex-husband is the topic, and Roy is testy on what to say now, knowing Mac and her are more than just some night fling - they _went_ on a _date!_ \- that'll grow into something more if it is watered enough. He doesn't know where his heart lies with her. She's saved his life, but he's only known her for so little of a time to actually make an impact. She is gorgeous, he'll agree with that unto the end of time, but currently he's stuck on a roof with her and him leaving is the absolute definition of rude.

She is quiet next to him, but she's not having her head pointed upwards, but rather to the right of her, directly so she can stare at him. Midna loves the way his hair almost covers his eyes, with extra long bangs that he'll brush out of the way occasionally. How his skin glows under the stars, where it glistens with sweat after a workout... the crazed, ferocious look in his eyes after a battle, and the pure outright spilling of emotion that proves how honest he is. She hates being in such a conundrum, as she cannot have two guys in her life or in a relationship, because there is no way she can keep one of the secret.

Her hair blows in the breeze, hiding some of her face, but none of it obscures her view of Roy, who is soundless as he observes nature and the situation laid out before him. Is he perfect? Of course not. Is he good enough? Absolutely.

Roy's skin stirs, as if a thousand centipedes were crawling over him. He looks around wildly, feeling like there's a nest of bugs infesting inside his intestines. He sees that Midna is staring at him, not even trying to hide it. "What are you doing?" he asks.

"I'm staring at you," Midna says truthfully, shrugging her shoulders.

"Why?"

"Am I making you uncomfortable?"

"Very," he snorts, laying back down.

"I can stop if you want me to."

"That'd be for the best."

She obliges, shifting her body so her back is up against the shingled roof. Midna senses that while what she is doing _is_ wrong, a part of Roy inside him likes the attention, the craving of wanting her gaze on him and not on some other man. It drives her wild that there is a gauntlet laid in front of her and she's trying to traverse it by understanding the signs. Mac Sarasota is smitten with her - he's stated it tenfold, and the 'date' at the Honeymoon restaurant had been the cincher - and she definitely finds him attractive, brave, courageous, and built with pure might behind those muscles and a rather soft exterior once you get to know him.

Roy is there too, attractive in his own light, and although she has yet to really see any 'power' come from his fists, she's heard of his marksmanship excellence, is enthralled by a few of the good looks, and Midna downright feels dirty having these thoughts. She's supposed to be centered on one person, she laments to herself, but there's only so much she can do. It makes her feel used, that she's stuck between a rock and a hard place, to try and find out where her heart wants to lead her exactly, and all she gets is confusion, rocks and hard places to rummage through.

"How long does it last?" Roy asks suddenly, breaking her train of thought.

"How long does what last?"

"Being on this ride of Syrenet trips and cities," he expounds. "Having that feeling someone is breathing down your neck constantly, and there's nothing you can do but let it happen?"

Midna props herself on one of her elbows, looking pointedly at him. "I don't think I follow."

Roy looks at her, his eyes cloudy, his brow furrowed. "I've been up here for the past half hour just thinking. Snake told me, back in D.C, that working for Corrin never gets any easier. That she makes us do impossible things and we're forced to do them save our own death by her hands or someone else's entirely. It didn't exactly bolster my confidence, if you know what I mean," he guffaws to himself. "The world is no longer black and white, and I feel like I'm not in the gray area either. I just... exist, and watch all this tragedy fall before us."

"I don't know if my words ever own up to much," she drawls on, running a hand down one of the shingles, which cracks under her touch, half of it clacking down to the ground from above. "But I do know that after a certain length of time, I get to numb to it," Midna looks away, not at the sky, but down at the roof, which reminds her of bumpy skin risen from bruises. She is unable to distinguish between which bruises are hers, her husband's, her father's, her mother's, or Mac's now, at this point there's been so much spilt blood, so much sorrow and sadness that she takes it all in and does exactly what she told Roy. She's numb. "I've been on many missions where I had to seduce this executive or employee, find out the dirt he's been making, and then end him," she shrugs haplessly. "I'm so used to taking my top off for a mission that it is second nature. Is that what you mean?"

There's a shift of sound as the redhead man sits straight up now, Midna mirroring his actions. "When those rebels attacked us two days ago... it made me put everything into perspective. Back in Boston, on that mission against Link, he tortured me purely because I was going to ruin his business and his deal with Corrin..." Roy shakes his head, expression grim. "Those rebels? I felt anger, a pure rage coming from them - something I've never felt before from anyone, including Link. They really wanted to kill us. Thank god Mac and Snake could stand or otherwise we'd be lying in a gutter somewhere, stabbed to death..."

"There are evil people in the world," Midna resigns for that to be her answer, as she's unsure of what to exactly say. "And evil people do extremely evil or insane things. That rebel attack was one of them. Link was another."

He frowns, disagreeing with her. "I think you're missing my point. When does it ever stop? All this hatred towards Corrin and her presidency and her implementations... they only seem to bring rage and confusion and violence. I can continue to fight, but after awhile I may want to get off and be something else," Roy closes his eyes, tilting his head up at the sky. "I'm not a killer."

Midna is taken aback by that, her eyebrows coming together. She rewinds what he said in her head over and over again. Roy thinks he isn't a killer. The redhead girl is frozen in place, wanting to say something, _anything,_ that'd make a lick of sense, but she's grasping for straws. If Midna closes her eyes, she can picture clear as day the very first man she killed, a gunshot wound to the head, the scarlet spewing everywhere. Some gets on her clothes, on her face, and she flinches. Over the next few days she is in Snake's office crying out woes of suffering, at how she can't get the man's screams out of her head.

 _They won't go away. He won't go away._

 _Men tend to do that. It isn't easy._

 _Will they ever go away?_

 _In time. It'll be a long time, but they will._

 _I never want to do that again._

 _It isn't my decision._

She is careful on the next few words that she says. "If you didn't want to do any killing, why did you join a government force like the FBI? You aced all the tests dealing with combat and weaponry... and you're sitting here saying that you don't want to kill?"

He glares at her. "Don't put words in my mouth," Roy snaps. "I said that I'm not a _killer._ In that attack the rebels did while we were out drinking, we didn't kill anyone. I almost got stabbed with a knife, _I_ nearly died, yet Snake let them all go with the tail running between their legs. Had he ordered us to kill one of them, _any of them,_ I may not have been able to do it."

"Am I a killer?" Midna asks, looking straight into his eyes.

Roy's facial expression is impossibly soft, his eyes saddened, the furrow lines sinking in more into his face, looking older than he's ever been before. She waits with bated breath for an answer, knowing full and well it is a resounding, _yes,_ as she's killed hundreds of people, men and women. She's shot down murderers going for her, a robber who tried turning weapons on her in her own home... she almost shot Link when he had lunged for her, Snake taking that spot, but she almost did it all the same.

"You're a killer," he says. "You do it without hesitation."

"And that's because it is my duty," Midna grips him close, so close their lips are almost touching, but all Roy sees is the furious anger that is blazing in her eyes, a rage that consumes her with gritted teeth and clawed hands. "I hate killing people. It isn't fun! I don't get any satisfaction out of it! I simply do it because I'm told to," she broke away from him, the anger receding back into her veins, slowly but surely, and her grip lessens. "If someone were to charge at me, right now, with the intent to kill, would you kill them on the spot?"

"Of course," Roy answers immediately.

"If it was Mac or Shulk or anyone else on the team?"

"Yes!"

"Then what makes it different if the person you're killing isn't necessarily going after someone that you care about it, but another solider or a free citizen who is an innocent bystander in all this?"

Roy's voice dies in his throat, and he looks away, his face burning, feeling ashamed. He has the urge to stand up, but something compels him to stay seated on the roof, to suffer through however long this conversation becomes. He isn't saying that he isn't able to kill - he'd be quite adept at it - but that he's hesitant on doing it so often that it becomes second nature, and he's numb to the screams, numb to the pain, numb to the blood splatters on tile kitchen floors or on porcelain ceilings and gilded doors.

He leans over and begins to sob into his hands, distraught and having a floodgate of other emotion he cannot simply endure at this point in time.

Midna stays, in the same spot as she had been when she sat down, rubbing his back, muttering assurances and consoling him.

During his breakdown, her hand reaches over to latch onto his.

They stay there the entire night, until midnight breaks over the sky, and a morning dawn appears in their hearts.

* * *

Fiora's hair is like glass. Brittle, beautiful, chipped, broken, and strewn everywhere. Her eyes are reflective diamond pools full of emotion and happiness and truth, until they no longer stare at anything but an empty void and a beyond that is dark and depressing and there's nothing more than sorrow remaining. Fiora's laugh is strong and vibrant, like a child filled with glee until her trachea is crushed inwardly, a silence pervading the land when the joy dies out. Syllables dissipate and her heart snaps, and Fiora is laying on the ground like a broken rag-doll. Her eyes gaze upward past the heavens, past the stars, and the clouds, and into a beyond that is infinite and white and pure, where there's no sadness, no death, no crimson spilling around her.

The flaps of her neck are open wide, like a gaping mouth for a rodent to make its nest in, dry blood coagulating around the edges of flesh, bits of metal thrown in, and she's screaming, she's stuck while the monster devours her and the smell of copper rises above. Her voice gives out as the river of life drains from her very core. The ground goes from dark to darker to black to a pitch midnight that the crows land on. The skin rots away like paper mache, crumply and weathered, the flesh sagging from thin bones that come from a woman emaciated and tortured before her death. Her voice rebounds against the halls, full and strong, until there's nothing. Fiora Roberts is no more, and she'll never be anything again.

Her aura is seen racing down the halls like a wild horse let off its leash, a pearly white smile that is bitter and charcoaled and black. The child that has never existed is nestled in her arms as she kisses him to sleep, soothing him and rocking him until the sky darkens and it darkens forever, a light snuffed out until the end of time. The lullaby she whispers gets louder and louder and louder until it causes cracks in the molding and plaster, the house falling around her as the baby screams in pain, and she's laughing, laughing insanely, before another spell of quiet drowns everything else out. Her laugh dissipates on the wind, like water slowly coming to a trickle out of a faucet, rusty and molded into something grotesque like her body recovered from the wreckage.

Shulk imagines that these are all the ways his wife may have died. He is currently sitting in his room, a sketchpad and pencil and a set of crayons next to him as he's bent over a table, drawing away another picture of her while these thoughts come and go. At times, he'll draw a scar above her right eyebrow where he imagines a knife may have cut her open, leaving a battle wound that she never recovers from. Shulk is consumed by a hatred, crumpling the paper in his hand, tossing it in the waste basket over on the other end of the room.

He curses to himself, getting another piece of paper. He starts to draw the outline of a female figure - dammit, he can never get the curves exactly right, or the crook of the nose, or the way her eyes sparkle like she's unearthed a priceless secret - when a constant prattling interrupts him. The AC unit above him in the ceiling is shaking like mad, but he's not talking about the broken air conditioner, but the person who is supposed to be his best friend.

"Whatcha doing?" Lucas asks out, his disk placed in the middle of Shulk's bed. He's a good two and a half - three feet away from him, watching with a grin on his face, not quite knowing the exacts of what Shulk is doing nor who he's drawing. Had he gained some knowledge of it, perhaps the smile would fade fast and be replaced by a frown.

"None of your business," Shulk growls back, finishing the outlining of Fiora's body. His dream that he had last night still shakes him to his core, with the world of iron and blue fire and her, _her,_ a mangled beast of a woman he used to love, icy cold hands wrapped around his throat as she tears him apart, word by word, piece by piece. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"But I'm bored!" Lucas complains.

"Then go back to your little world and grow some more apple trees. I want to be left alone."

"It's winter at home. All my apple trees are dead."

"Then unmake winter!" Shulk says angrily, clenching his fists, almost snapping the pencil in two. "Do something other than talk to me. Please."

Lucas laughs, the sound full of mirth and carried by the four winds. It is a delectable sound, as if it had a taste, like candy and chocolate and everything that'd make Fiora happy. The commander looks away, gritting his teeth, staring at the shapes in the wall instead of the paper or at his AI Unit. It is starting to tick him off, this creative process of building something up, getting upset at it, and throwing it all away. His hard work turned to rubble is something he can no longer stand, Shulk is determined to make a realistic picture of his wife. It isn't as simple as picking up a photo and looking at it.

There are none of he and Fiora anymore, no memento mori around for him to get a sneak peek.

He's burned them all. He burned every last memory of Fiora from his life, his house, his job... all except what lies in his brain and the wedding ring he still holds onto. Shulk looks at the picture of Fiora with a heavy heart. The last picture he drew of her had been must've been back when he saw Corrin in D.C after Oklahoma City; her voice rings in his head, and the picture of his wife stays inside his conscious for days. He thinks it is why he had that nightmare of his house exploding on him, because he had made a memory of her, life would punish him with irrevocable lasting damage.

She is perfect. _"She was perfect,"_ Shulk corrects himself. She's no longer living, and there's nothing he can do to change it. He cannot go back and time and fix what went wrong, all he can do is look for the future that'll never come, the light at the end of the tunnel that the watchman forgot to turn on. It saddens him. Shulk Roberts has dealt with suffering and loss like it's second nature, yet he'll never come to terms with it, with a loss of Fiora Roberts that'll haunt him the rest of his days.

Lucas watches Shulk's mind go through the seven stages of grief, picking up on a rather impotent detail. "Are you drawing Fiora?" he takes a shot.

The commander turns around, his jaw clenched, eyes unfocused yet focused all the same, a gaze directed squarely at Lucas. "How'd you know?"

"You get this look on your face like you lost something," the AI Unit explains. "She is the only serious loss in your life that I know of."

Shulk looks down at the drawing he made, and then he makes a forceful sigh, grabbing the piece of paper, ripping it to shreds. He puts his face in his hands yet he does not cry out, he does not make a sound other than a pitiful sniffle, but no tears come. He screams for them, he needs there to be a release of emotion other than blankness and despondence and pure silence from an otherwise fully functioning department. All that is left in Shulk's body is remorse, a remorse at the things he's done and the things he wants to continue to do, unsure of how to lead on to where there's nothing left in him.

"I can't do it anymore..." he says to himself.

Lucas hears it, however. The AI Unit perks his head up. "Do what anymore?"

"Draw her," Shulk motions at the ripped up pieces of paper. "I used to be able to draw Fiora in twenty minutes flat. Her eyes, her hair, the smile... all of it would be perfect. I made one not too long ago... and now I can't even do it..." He looks down at his hands. "The worst part is that I don't even remember what she looks like anymore. She was kind. She was perfect. And the world took her away from me."

There's a silence that pervades the room, where Shulk sits glumly in his chair, sniffling some, but still not crying. He can't cry now, not ever, and certainly not in front of Lucas. The blonde digital piece of technology has seen the commander cry more times than he can count on matters more trivial than that of a cat being stuck up in a tree, to waking up during Shulk's nightmares and calming him down. This, however, is different. Shulk doesn't know why, but it just is, a feel that is far different from anything he's ever experienced.

The day he's told of his wife's death is one he'll never forget. There is a rain in the sky. A darkness that settles gloomily over Washington D.C, the downpour relentless in its approach from the gray clouds to the scorched and sodden ground. Shulk's car breaks down in the middle of the highway, and he has to push it up onto a service ramp in the rain with a few other bystanders. A pigeon steals his lunch, he's late on a phone bill, it is pouring, and he learns that his wife is dead.

He still has no idea how she died. There's been some circulating rumors from members of the Syrenet program that have been there when Fiora Roberts gave life to it, but Shulk shoots them all down because they're purely preposterous. All he knows is that his wife had been found with multiple wounds inflicted to her body, twisted metallic rods poking out of a few places, a twisted neck, and a face of pure agony.

Shulk wants to twist the neck of the person who hurt him and murdered his wife, in the same way she died as it'd be purely poetic and finally give the blonde man a sense of freedom.

He gets up, having gone through the motions of feeling sorry for himself, and then burying all the pain underneath a mess of rubble and solitude and silence. The commander has one foot in the room, the other out into the hallway - he's hungry and lamenting away his sorrows causes him to get really, _really_ hungry - when Lucas speaks up again, after sticking to himself for a few painful moments.

"Wait," Lucas calls out. Shulk stills, looking back warily. "I remember what she looks like. _Looked like_ , I mean."

The commander eyes his AI Unit, raising an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"I remember what Fiora looks like."

Shulk goes back into the room, his expression light. "You- you do?" A series of images race by in his mind - a broken tower, a rustle of a tree branch, Fiora's dress spilling around his legs, her smile, Fiora herself, a golden lock of hair, a dark eyed, black eyed and amber haired man, a push, a shove, a scream, a haughty laugh, a glistening blade in the night, a raven, a witch with silverette hair that cackles back at him with eyes full of blood - but they're in as quick as they come. "How?"

Lucas taps his head. "It's all in here. I remember everything, one way or other."

The commander sits back on the floor of the room, looking straight into Lucas's eyes. "What do you remember of her?"

The blonde boy rubs his chin thoughtfully, a small smile resting on his lips. "She had blonde hair, like you. Like me. Almost dark enough to where it was orange, like the sunset... and her eyes were illuminating, diamond and fragile blue glass. There was a small mole over by the left side of her lips, and freckles that made it look like she fell in a sand dune. Her laugh gave me chills up and down my spine whenever I heard it... and she was the fiercest warrior I've ever seen. You would've thought they were two different people, the way she was in a battle versus being out of one," he recites, telling every last detail of Shulk's wife that he could remember from his databases, until he leaves one last thought down till the very end. "And I know she loved you," he says to Shulk, catching the Alpha Squad leader off guard. "She loved you more than anything in the entire world, like I had never seen before. From the moon and back... she loved you."

Shulk is in tears by this point, sobbing into his hands, but the cry isn't one of sadness, but a joy, a freelance joy where he no longer feels bound by anything. He doesn't need a drawing to remember his wife, the woman he loved, his crown jewel. All he has to do is turn to Lucas and ask him what he wished to hear about. The commander looks up from his hands, a small smile forming on the corners of his mouth, a slight tug pulling up, _pulling up,_ and he's never been more happy in his entire life. He hears things that he doesn't remember, from Lucas's retelling, such as the mole and freckles. They appear and pop in the sun, to vanish into the pores like a mole out of their hiding place - oh her smile, Shulk is infatuated with her grin that encompasses all the wide ranges of joy one can feel - and he breaks into a laugh at that.

He wipes at his eyes, sitting back against the wall, but it is about to topped off by Lucas's next statement.

The AI Unit's eyes twinkle mischievously, caught with a sudden thought, an ensnarement that will light a fire in the wounded man's heart.

"Would you like to see her?"

Shulk looks up. "What?"

"I could try and see if I could have you meet Fiora. A projection or something..."

"You could do that for me?"

Lucas shrugs. "I don't know. When there was that power outage back in D.C when you went to get Roy from the hospital, a few of my vital programs shut down or altered to something other than. I heard, though it may be a simple lie, that there was a way for a Syrenet employee to bond with their AI Unit to where you could come here," To empathize his point, Lucas makes a circle around his disk, Shulk starting to follow his gist.

"You're saying that I could somehow be transported into your..." he points with his fingers. "Into your disk? Into an AI Unit's world?"

"It was something Ness mentioned once, but I think he heard it from Lyn who had heard it from Kuro and it probably was just a long chain of heresy..." Lucas trails off. He looks at his commander with sympathy flooding in those precious diamond orbs. "If I found out how to do that, would you want to?"

"See Fiora?" A dutiful nod from Lucas, a scoff from Shulk. "I- I don't know. That's- that's something I might not be ready for; to see her again..."

The commander looks up at the ceiling designs and imagines what it would be like if he were a father, with a fan swinging above a baby's crib, blue or pink paint decorating the walls, a miniature solar system dancing in between the blades. Blankets of many colors lining the walls for the baby to whine and wail for at a moment's notice. Two young parents in the door, both blonde, both diamond eyed, and both very much in love.

Shulk's silent for a moment. Lucas prods the rest of the conversation. "Shulk?"

The idea fades - _just another silly bobble of things that'll never come true,_ Shulk disregards the thought bitterly, _I'll never be a father, and she is very much dead. There's no nursery, there's no nothing_ \- and he's shaking his head in dissent, a grim dissent with lips pressed together, eyes firmly staring away at things beyond normal view.

"No," he says.

And it's final.

Shulk Roberts is not ready for what comes next in the step to either entirely forget or entirely remember his wife, and it'll be a long time before he decides that he's ready to face the gorgeous pale-skinned, light haired demon of dreams and times past.

A scheme, purely designed on a fool's sense of hope.

* * *

 _"You drink too much."_

It's the starting line between President Corrin Etch and FBI director Snake Karlo's conversation that lasts them until the wee hours of the morning. The president is sitting at the kitchen bar - _pah, it's hardly a bar,_ she laments solemnly, downing a shot of whiskey, _more like a tomb that'll have my will scratched into it_ \- with several drinks all lined up, and she wastes the night away downing glass after glass of shots which Robin keeps on making when she passes through, working her blizzard-like little head off.

"You don't need to be doing this right now," Corrin shouts at the vice president. "You should be asleep. Or drinking! Or drinking while you sleep, I really don't care..."

Robin doesn't answer her, the vice president's mind caught up in some other domestic business concerning her that Corrin will not understand, so she is promptly left out of it. She doesn't see it as a problem, after all it means more drinks for her and that is never a bad thing in Corrin's book. She grips the smooth circular form of the glass and tips it to meet her lips, the tangy and fiery liquid scorching her taste buds that then burns her throat as it goes down. A man's drink, drunk better by a woman than any man, to how she then gets Snake involved in her little tit about drinking games and how women stack up to men in the liquor department.

He enters to only say goodnight, but he's dragged into something way worse.

"I need to get to bed," Snake says tiredly, rubbing at his eyes for emphasis.

"Not happening," she snarks back, plopping him down on the stool across from her. "I am your boss, and I can fire you at any moment's notice. _So,_ as your boss I'm demanding you play a drinking game with me. Or drink with me, I don't care which. I win the slot anyways."

"You drink too much."

"And you drink too little."

"Point being?"

"You always look so grim," Corrin says, sloshing some of her drink around as she haphazardly sways on the bar stool. She's not quite sure why there are seven variations of Snake's face in front of her, or why they represent the ninety seven colors of the rainbow. _There are 97 colors of the rainbow? Damn, things have changed..._ One thing is for certain though, and that he's scowling at her antics and that needs to be changed. "Snake Karlo, the man who never smiles... Y'know, _why_ are you just so _unhappy?_ "

"You really want me to answer that question?"

"Yes."

"Will I get fired for it?"

"Maybe."

"Good enough for me," Snake consents, reaching over for a glass. He picks an empty one up, his other free hand taking the large bottle of blueberry vodka that Corrin had laid out next to her. Once the whiskey is taken out of commission and filling up her belly, she desires to go onto the vodka, but if he drinks all of it before she's given a chance to have a morsel, she very well may fire him for being a total cunt. She snorts. She's never used that word before.

The FBI director fills his shot glass with it, clinking hers. Corrin downs the shot first, gasping as it burns the windpipe, fire and smoke coming out as she sighs. Snake winces inwardly downing the vodka - he drinks, but he'll be unable to keep up with her at this point, and he certainly doesn't drink heavily - because he's never been acquired to the taste. A ginger ale Schweppes with a splash of bourbon is his weakness, but both of those drinks are unfortunately missing from the table.

Corrin's head is pounding underneath all the lights, underneath all the boisterous noise - _where has Robin gone,_ she wonders aimlessly - and the ceiling fans and the sound of bottles and glasses clinking and clacking against the counter. Everything registers like a gunshot in her head, causing Corrin to flinch, feeling a sudden chill come over her. A wisp of blonde hair floats by in her vision, and she's reminded of Cloud, a man she hasn't seen in days.

She giggles suddenly, but nothing is even funny to her at this point. "You never answered my question."

Snake raises an eyebrow, nodding slightly later, understanding what she meant. He places the vodka shot down, not having finished all of it one fell swoop unlike yours truly. _God, she's a drinker. God, she's so glad she doesn't have a child._ "Well, since my job isn't on the line, I can be as honest as I want," he downs the rest of it, the last sip hurting and scalding as much flesh as the first. "I have to keep track of eleven lives, minimum, in this compound. Two of which happen to be the most influential people of our country, another being the person who'll follow me after I'm dead, five Syrenet employees, myself, a rugged boxer who's celibate from alcohol, and a piece of technology that is smarter yet stupider than everyone in this house combined," Snake ticks off the people he counts with his fingers. "It gets stressful."

"You think I'm one of the most important people in this compound?"

"I was talking about my left shoe, but we can go with you if it makes you feel any better," he smirks.

"Gods forbid I am more important than your left nut," Corrin fills another shot glass.

Snake opens his mouth to rebuttal that they were, in fact, not talking about any sort of vulgar genitalia, but articles of clothing, but what the hell, it isn't as if Corrin is going to remember the conversation in the morning. That'd be for the best.

Corrin sets her glass down, eyeing it and him. "Question," she says, struggling through the -qu sound with quite a heavy bit of trouble on the 'u' rather than the 'q'. "Is whiskey a man's drink? That women can't drink it? Because I love this damned thing!" She seizes the bottle of whiskey pouring her a double shot in a single shot glass, some almost overflowing from the top.

He rolls his eyes. "You drink too much." What a total avoidance of that question.

"Please," she laments. "Link Collins said the same thing about me and he ended up being dead with a bullet in his leg."

"A gunshot wound to the head," Snake corrects. "Placed there by me."

"Same thing."

"I beg to differ."

"Link Collins said that all the world needs is a drunk politician to make things better; it was a dig, not a compliment nor a proverb of wisdom. And here you are criticizing my health."

"Does that mean I am going to end up like Link Collins?" Snake tilts his head up, smirking.

"Shot in the leg, maybe."

"Least it isn't the head."

Corrin laughs and laughs away, slapping her knee, slapping the counter and practically having a good ole time with the old rugby team. "God, Link Collins was such a cunt. I'm glad he's dead." Officially a cunt counter for Madam President Corrin Etch. Counter: 2.

She remembers when she first met him, that sleazy weasel Collins. With his leather boots and his leather jacket - _a hunting jacket? I can't remember. Who gives a shit? I don't._ \- and his cigars and his blonde hair and his stupid attitude. She hated him, she still hates him even though he's rotting away in the dirt six feet under, buried beneath a birch tree with nothing but the worms for company. Corrin recalls his face and voice so specifically because the man of many tastes flirts with her, two of her secret service agents who weren't gay in any sort of manner yet somehow has them blushing by the end of the evening, five senators who were all women, and the lead chef... Link Collins survives the evening unscathed. He's drunk too all hell, but Corrin finds it a positive.

Ironic that he belabors away at saying a drunk politician is a waste to the world, yet he's perfectly okay to do it.

She never trusted him, Corrin is happy he's dead and he'll never insult her or her presidency or her staff ever again. She won't smell his cigar smoke, she won't hear his cackle of laughter, and it's one less blonde head of hair to deal with. Now if she could just get rid of Shulk...

Corrin lets the vibrations of her laughs and her other pitiful noises sink beneath the skin, righting herself on the bar stool and taking her fifth and final shot, gasping it back with a fire coursing through her veins. She's brought to life with a cackle of electricity, a rousing laughter that causes her to slap her thighs and pound the table. Snake, who is halfway now through a cold bottle of beer taken from the kitchen fridge, pauses in his drink, eying the president with the strangest look he has ever given a person, partly because he is terrified.

"What?" he asks her, after the sudden raucous burst of noise dies down.

"I just realized something..." she whispers to herself, giggling.

"And what would that be?"

"I don't miss Cloud," Corrin says matter-of-factly, gesticulating wide with her drink. "I haven't spoken to him in nearly ten days and I now no longer miss him... like I could care less if he died or if he purely left me out of spite..."

Snake makes a sympathetic face. "I think it's the alcohol that's getting to you."

"And if it isn't?" she challenges. "If I'm being this way because _I_ feel this way?"

He downs another heavy swig of his beer. "Then there's no saving you, I suppose."

She remembers how panicked her voice was, screaming into the microphone that her husband is nowhere to be found and that this cruel little joke he's playing better stop, or otherwise she'll simply fall apart. And fall apart she indeed does, in Robin's bedroom of the White House sobbing away, clutching pillows and bed sheets and howling to the clouds that, ironically, Cloud is gone. She wants to file a missing person's case immediately, but forty-eight hours is the norm. She calls his cell phone repeatedly, getting told by that stupid, _stupid_ automated little voice that it is not available right now.

Corrin chucks her phone at the wall if she recalls correctly.

What breaks her is when it has been four days in and no sign of him, and they're about to disembark for Chicago. She's going to leave D.C without having the safety of her husband. She's unsure whether to mourn or laugh, as if she saw his disappearance coming - _if he's disappeared,_ the president intones darkly, _if may save me a lot of trouble if he actually died_ \- because there's this freedom released off her shoulders now that she's never felt before. It is slightly scary, in all honesty, a freedom to be let on your own. He is not an abusive man, and he loves her very much, Corrin knows this with all her heart. She is a loving wife who doesn't miss her husband all that much, Corrin _knows_ this with all of her heart.

"I mean," she stutters out with a nervous laugh, "He could be gutted somewhere in alley way, shot to death by some maniac, and I can't find him! Some madman wants revenge on my family and the only way to do so is to get through me! I already lost the child... he's all that's left..." Corrin does not even register those words leaving her throat, and she sobs on the counter.

Snake raises an eyebrow conspicuously, but obliging to rub her back and give her soothing comforts. He's never heard her mention a child to anyone as far as he's aware, whether it died in her womb, she had it killed, or she gave it away. Cloud never spoke of a baby boy or girl - _did it ever have a gender,_ he questions - and certainly wouldn't give an answer if hard pressed to, probably.

She looks up, getting the last cry out of her system.

"Am I going insane, Snake?"

"No, madam president, you're not."

"Would you tell me I am?"

"If you want me to."

"Cloud would've done that," Corrin looks away, watching the ceiling fans spin away and get lost in the cyclic turn. "He would've grabbed me between both of my shoulders and shake me all around. 'Stop it!' he'd cry, you're hurting yourself being this way," she looks down at her feet. "It was him telling me that Syrenet was hurting me that caused me to chuck his stuff off a cliff. I don't think I ever even got to properly forgive him. He went missing that night..."

Her hands grasp the vodka, skipping over the whiskey as Snake has left her most of the bottle. She tips it over, hesitating, willing to go further, but her hands will not comply. She sets the drink back down after a bit, looking at the FBI director with a tear stained face, eyes red and full of emotion.

"Are you okay?" he asks, eyes full of sympathy and concern.

She nods. Corrin wants to say no, but she has to say yes for the betterment of everyone else. She's never broken down like this before.

"I'm good," the president sniffles. "I needed that."

Her hands leave the glass there, as she gets up, swaying drunkenly. She never makes it to the bed as she collapses on the couch, sighing contently with a smirk as the coolness of leather hits her, and the charming, confide of darkness consumes her.

It's just a fool's game, this game of Syrenet in Chicago.

* * *

 **There we are ladies and gentlemen! That was Chapter #24: A Fool's Scheme. I really loved this chapter, as I am all about the one on one conversations that allow me as a writer to really dig into their souls and their lives and unleash everything about them that is gorgeous and painful. Roy is doubting himself in Syrenet, if what he is doing is a good thing, and do you all share his doubts? I'd be interested in hearing how you feel.**

 **What do you think of Lucas telling Shulk about Fiora, on how he forgets what she looks like and cannot draw her anymore? And of what next chapter may be concerned, is Shulk going to try and take up on his AI Unit's offer of seeing his wife one last time? How do you think he'll come to pass by her company?**

 **Corrin and Snake's section, although the shortest, was my favorite most definitely, as I haven't gotten to really focus on her - or Snake for that matter - all that much in awhile, and doing this now let you see what she is going through. Corrin has a lot of power, and sometimes those with a lot of power who feel powerless just cannot do anything. Just your thoughts on that section as a whole would be lovely!**

 **It'll probably be around two weeks or so until I get the next chapter out, which is Chapter #25: Lucas's Nebular Network, the chapter I have been waiting for since the very conception of this piece, our halfway point through Arc 3, because stuff is happening and it is all coming to a head. Please review and let me know your thoughts, I'd be delighted to hear them. I love you all so much! Thank you for reading and reviewing and being generally awesome readers - I have the best group, I swear - as it brings me joy to bring others joy. I love you all so much! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	25. Chapter 25: Lucas's Nebular Network

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #25: Lucas's Nebular Network. I am so sorry for the long, long wait that this has become, but my heart wasn't into writing for a little bit and school was starting to once again become a huge chore and bother and troublesome issue that I needed to stick to, but I'm back! This Thanksgiving break that I am on is a much needed one to catch my breath and actually churn at the very least one or two chapters out for my WIPS before suffering the same routine; luckily Winter Break is a month from last Saturday, so I then have fourteen days to write _even_ more. Review replies!**

 **CrashGuy01- Glad to see you reviewing again, missed ya buddy! Ooh, yeah... Corrin is not doing the greatest right now, if I am to be frank... but she's under a lot of pressure and just wants things to go as smoothly as possible. Snake is starting to become one of my favorite characters for every piece I write as he's just this mellow head that we know is going to fix things and get everything to where it needs to be. And you hit the nail on the head, where Roy and Midna are concerned. Midna is torn between both guys, as it is damn clear Mac is head over heels for her, but Roy is probably suffering relapses of how he feels.**

 **Guest- I'm so sorry about the wait, as I figured you were the one most hyped for it! Your words are so very kind to me, my goodness you have no idea how much that means to hear you say so. If I knew the answer to how I write thousands of words a day I would immediately tell you, and there are also writers out there who write way more than I do in lesser time than I do and don't take as many breaks as I do in a given week. I am also flattered to hear you say that this is your favorite fanfiction, though I am so sure that it'll be unseated by something else in near future. I think you're really going to love this chapter.**

 **Metroid-Killer- Thank you. Interesting thought process. With how you're viewing Shulk and Fiora, I don't think he ever got that closure that he needed with her - it really does matter - and mayhaps this is the only way out, you never know. When it comes to why everyone hates Syrenet, the majority opinion isn't hate, but a select group that just downright dislikes it. Think about it this way. The government provides something free of charge that has the largest and highest amount of perks that anyone has ever heard of and there's no catch? From someone as sly as Corrin? I'd question it too. Glad to know you liked Snake and Corrin's conversation the most, I loved it too.**

 ** **Enjoy Chapter #25: Lucas's Nebular Network.****

* * *

The empty foyer is quiet, only the gentle chirping of birds outside the windows acting as the only noise coming into the compound. Pockets of pealing sunshine spill through shards of glass that pool around the tiled floor, shadows pouring on the edges of the light bank. A larger shadow stands between the wide windows, a singular body looking up and smiling at the beauty of nature. Vice president Robin Wyndel lets the warmth envelop her, a warm hug with memories of home and mother's chocolate chip cookies that cause her heart to pain slightly.

Robin is usually not known to be a morning person, and she'd whole heartedly agree with that sentiment. However, something beckons her to open her eyes at six in the morning and creep out of her room, careful to not wake anyone should she wish to be spared from the wrathful being that is Corrin Etch. She laughs to herself quietly when thinking how she's scared of another human being purely for waking them up. Corrin needs her to be successful. She couldn't work without her right hand woman and expect things to turn out the same way. Corrin lacks stability and a complete understanding of organization, which luckily, Robin contains in her brain in spades. She didn't get valedictorian of her high school without being somewhat capable at organizing a messy schedule, let alone an entire country.

She stands in the middle of the foyer, bathed in the sunlight, and closes her eyes. Even though the vice president is only breaking the seal of the envelope concerning her age in the early forties, in her bones it is as if eons have passed between her childhood and womanhood. She remembers her mother, graceful and lithe, the epitome of a prima ballerina, standing by the counter with those chocolate chip cookies and a birthday card. Her father is gruffer, a harder blur as she hasn't seen him since a young age - around twelve or so - and he's there to with a smile, a beard, and a present. Robin doesn't remember her very first home, the home her parents had built, but it's been told to her over the years. A spiraling staircase, a gilded chandelier swinging above a diamond pool of reflective glass floors, butlers and maids, a pool, and each room dedicated to one specific color... a reminder of her golden age.

Then her father vanishes without a trace. Some suspect foul play. Her mother fears he's cheating. They switch homes - Robin and her mother - as the old one is a liability and there needs to be no connection between the mother daughter duo and the man that suddenly disappeared from their life. They move to a more quaint home somewhere in Oregon, with a rickety wooden porch, brass instruments littering the yard, and one old fragmented memory from the home of long ago.

Passed down through the generations of her mother's family is a victrola with an attached phonograph to play worn out old records like the days floating through a summer breeze. It stays in an open aired room with clear windows and no curtains. Robin recalls her mother smashing them in one day where glass litters among the yard like kaleidoscopes hiding beneath the moonlit grass, and so the 'open' room becomes truly a vast expanse of blue sky. Her mother never had a desire to teach Robin ballet, or the time the silverette laments to herself. Sometimes, after she's been told to go to bed, Robin would peer around the corner and watch her mother dancing away by herself under the moonlit night. A gentle breeze blows through the room and the euphonic chirping of crickets can be heard elsewhere out in the pastures. Her mother closes her eyes, extends her arms out as if she's tackling a waltz, and then steps away. A frenzied dance, with frantic spins that become erratic, and her mother's movements get faster and faster as the victrola winds up and plays the old records.

She hears the Nutcracker theme play, and her mother falls to the ground laughing, clutching her skirts and giving airy, bubbly cries of joy. Robin, one time however, frowns when her mother collapses and cries in her skirts instead. She misses her husband, and Robin misses her father. It's been so long since she's seen either one of them and all she can do with that is try and not forget. She's afraid about forgetting. What happens when she forgets? What happens when you can no longer see what they look like? Do the memories rebuild themselves into new ones, or are they lost to the void of consciousness forever?

Robin breaks away from looking up at the ceiling, imaging a chandelier to come down and crash down upon her. She backs up somewhat, her skin tightening, her breath hitching, and she looks around the foyer. It is still empty, and all that remains is her wilting form, and her body shaking. She closes her eyes and tells herself to think of home. _Think of home. Think of home. There's no place like home. The victrola. Mother. Father. The victrola. Ballet. Ballerinas. Mother laughing. The victrola. The victrola._

It catches up to her that she's actually mouthing the word 'victrola' until she's righted herself up and is saying it over and over again. "Victrola. Victrola. Victrola..." Robin says, and her heart rate starts to slow down. Far away, as if it isn't even real, she hears music. A Beethoven composition. Maybe the fifth? Or the third... she cannot tell. The foyer transforms into a ballroom, with high rise walls and ornate paintings lining the wall. _Mona Lisa. The Last Supper. School of Athens. Starry Night._ Beauty around every corner, and Robin's eyes drink it all in. The whine of the music heightens, louder and louder it escalates until it is blaring with harsh, cacophonic sounds over the walls and spilling out onto the floor.

The ballroom is empty, there's no one else around, but Robin sees _him._ She doesn't know his name, but she holds his hand anyways. The music rises with a flourish, this time returning to the pleasantries of before, and she smiles. Whomever this savoir of hers is, she's glad to meet him. The two glide over the floor, and he is such a gentleman. A mask that hides his mysterious eyes - amber ones that glow behind an opaque skin tone - and hands that are warm, _very_ warm, but Robin does not think about that now. His hair is surprisingly orange for a ginger, and he spins her out. She twirls, like a ballerina, like her mother, and into the air she flies. She's true to her namesake, she soars and lands gently elsewhere in the ballroom.

The rush of noise dies down in her ears as the blood flows and makes subwoofer sounds in her head. Her head is bowed low, arms back behind her as if she is to propel herself forward like a jet. Her right foot is in front of her left, and she's down onto one knee. A slow clap brings herself out of the ruse, and she looks around wildly. Her eyes search and scan the vicinity until they snag on her intruder.

Snake Karlo, the cheeky son of a gun, stands in the doorway from the opposite side of the complex, smirking all the while and clapping his hands. Each clap echoes loudly against the white walls. There is a luminous glow in his eyes, a ferocity that cannot be named.

Robin gets to her feet, ears burning, and her face probably as red as a tomato.

"How much of that did you see?" she asks timidly, returning back to her normal self.

"All of it," Snake answers earnestly. "You're quite good on your feet."

The vice president wants a hole in the Earth to open up and swallow her whole. What did she do to deserve such a cruel fate? She knows, deep down, that he'll never let her live this down. It'll be Christmas in seven years and he'll tell the story of how vice president Robin Wyndel made an ass of herself in the foyer of the Chicago Syrenet headquarters all because he can.

She needs a drink.

"Thank you," she nods, brushing a strand of loose hair back behind her ear.

"Who taught you how to dance?"

"No one. My mother danced however, and I'd watch her a lot when I was supposed to be asleep."

"She must've been an amazing person to watch if you picked all of that up," Snake straightens himself from the wall, walking past her towards the kitchen. "You hungry?"

"Starving."

Robin follows him across the foyer. She pauses in the opposite doorway, looking back at the windows with the sunlight pouring in. She frowns momentarily. In her vision, she saw an orange haired man. Not exactly ginger, but darker... like a sunset. Her skin runs cold. Where had she seen the man before? She doesn't know anyone by that skin tone nor by his appearance with a tall, striking form, and bulking muscles. She shrugs, shaking the thought from her head. It doesn't matter.

Snake is by the refrigerator, peering inside it, scouring for something. "Eggs... eggs... eggs..." he trails off nonchalantly, looking around the white cube lazily. His other hand is resting against the door of the fridge, and in his frustration he slaps it. "Dammit, we don't have any eggs. So no eggs, no French toast... but we do have milk..." he clucks his tongue. "Robin!" he calls. "How about some cereal?"

"Sure," she agrees. Robin takes the same spot that Corrin had just the night before, clutching that vodka bottle and crying away her sorrows. Robin notes how the seat is still strangely warm as if a phantom had occupied it in an earlier hour. Snake pulls out one of the milk cartons and places it on the counter. "I'll only use fat free milk," Robin pipes up, seeing that he had grabbed the 2%.

Snake looks at the carton. "What's wrong with 2%?"

"I don't like it."

"A little bit of fat wouldn't hurt."

"Just give me the milk. I am not firing you over a dispute concerning breakfast liquids," Robin rolls her eyes. He obliges with a chuckle, replacing the 2% with the fat free, grabbing a porcelain bowl from one of the cabinets. She watches him quietly, taking in every hushed breath and move of his muscles. It takes her a second to realize that Snake is shirtless, and so on full display is his tanned body, like cinnamon, with the broad shoulders and the abs... and Robin is afraid that if she looks any longer she'll drool.

It's as if she's back in high school. She remembers her first crush, this gaudy, tall, lanky nerd of a kid with braces and glasses, who always mispronounced the word mispronounced, and spat everywhere on his 'r's'. Her first kiss, and her first lap around the bases. He couldn't speak all too well, but Robin took his tongue to town, that's for sure. She wonders what Snake can do with his tongue...

Her thoughts cause her to freeze up, and luckily Snake has his back turned. _That gorgeous, muscled tone..._ She presses a hand up to her mouth, hoping to all the hells and heavens that she did not just say that out loud. It _is_ the high school days over again. When Snake turns around, Robin's face is as white as a ghost's. He gives a knowing smile, as the FBI director, like he told her all those days ago at Cloud and Corrin's dinner party, can read faces.

"Like what you see?"

"Yes..." Robin trails off. She shakes her head, snapping out of a trance. "No! I certainly do not."

"Here," Snake says, plopping the milk carton, the bowl, and a box of Rice Krispies on the counter. "Enjoy your gourmet fat free milk."

"I want Chex Mix instead..." the vice president runs a hand down her thigh, letting her fingers splay over her knee.

Snake clucks his tongue, looking at her knowingly. He understands this game well in full, and the vice president will have to really step up his game if this is supposed to go anywhere. Robin watches him walk back over to the pantry to lean down and grab another box of cereal. The curves of his butt are outlined nicely in the gym shorts he's wearing, and the vice president goes giddy again. She almost can't believe he actually agreed.

After having a damn delicious bowl of Chex Mix cereal and a few glasses of orange juice, she's disappointed to walk back into the kitchen to see Snake fully dressed in a suit and tie. The compound is still asleep, it being only about seven or so, and Robin knows the place needs their sleep if today is to go well. He's wiping down the counter, gun holstered in the back of his pants, and Robin's still drying her hair from her shower, dressed in a light bathrobe. It isn't see through, as the woman is not that low and tacky, morals are with her everywhere she goes.

She resumes her position, grabbing a banana from the fruit basket, unpeeling it. Robin takes a bite, watching Snake clean the counter. It is as if he can do everything domestic and still look gorgeous doing it. Cross that out. Robin Wyndel is to go on record and say that she did not claim to find the FBI director attractive in the very least. He's hideous, foul, repulsive, and the worst kind of man to want. But for Robin, he's perfect.

"You ready for today?" Snake asks her, throwing the wet napkin away, placing the cleaner back on its original shelf.

"As well as I can be," she answers. "It's Corrin doing most of the talking. You guys have the harder job."

"Eight government workers watching over the two most important people in the entire world in a region where we may be universally hated... it's just stuff I do on a normal day."

In line with Snake's detailing, Robin swallows a gulp of air. Today is the day that the Syrenet facility takes its mission statement to the wonderful denizens of Chicago. For two and a half hours, the president and vice president are to stand out in the heat with a Syrenet escort on a veranda only a few hundred yards away... if even that. Snake is to be positioned next to both of them with several guns and grenades on hand, while the rest of the gang - Roy, Shulk, Marth, Ike, Mac, Midna, and Pit - are on the veranda acting as the eyes in the sky. With the rebel attack that the group had on their first day arrival, Corrin's anxiety levels are at an all time high, and her paranoia runs rampant. Unfortunately, the other Syrenet squads are dispersed around the globe on other pertinent missions, and thus the resources that are spread thin is what they've got to deal with.

Corrin authorizes that the four Syrenet officials can use their suits in case things truly get dicey, and Pit can even use the drones he and Robin had been working on as scouts. She wants no whispers of assassination attempts, no hidden explosives, and certainly nothing that'll give them any bad PR... as she is not fond of the expression that all press is good press.

Robin drums her fingers against the counter. "What's your worst case scenario?"

"Your hired muscle is unable to protect you and we all die," Snake says. "That's what I'm worried about. I wasn't there in Oklahoma City, and we know how that went. Ike and Marth suffered through more than any of us. I was there for Boston and I still wasn't fast enough for Roy. I'm here now. Nothing's going to go wrong."

"You can't always save the day." She gives him a wry smile, lips pressed together, no teeth. Just a vague connection of emotion.

"I can always try."

"You put too much pressure on yourself," Robin says. "You're fine."

"Corrin admitted it to me last night, y'know," Snake interrupts suddenly, as he had been leaning on the counter with his elbows, head downturned, and he looks up at the vice president. She sees the beginning of tears in his eyes, and she's known him to never be a man who's gotten overtly emotional in any sort of respect.

"Admitted what?"

"That she doesn't miss Cloud. She said and began laughing like a maniac," Snake shakes his head, eyes shut as if he's keeping out a bad dream. "I've never seen her act this way. I think this mission is making her lose her mind."

"I think we're all losing our minds."

Snake looks away, into a pocket of shadow by the table in the corner of the kitchen. "She's said and done some different things, but this was... this was different. Completely different."

Robin chews on the inside of her cheek, feeling the tearing away of skin, but it does not bother her. "I never really liked him."

"Cloud?"

She shakes her head in assent. "Something about him rubbed me the wrong way. It's hard to say why, but it just... did."

"Fake?"

"I don't know. More than likely. He's a politician. I don't trust politicians."

"But you're a politician."

"Exactly."

Snake nods, but there's a frown plastered on his face. His stubble is starting to appear again, but it is growing in patches that are hard to connect the dots with. That means that the man is stressed, as Robin has known the director for quite some time, and he only has irregular beard growing patterns whenever something is weighing heavily on his mind. She reaches across and grabs his hand unconsciously, and he takes it back warmly.

Home. Her mother. Her father. The victrola. The victrola. The victrola. Worn out records. Her mother. A birthday present. Ballerina slippers. Hearts decorating a white frosted cake. Her father. The victrola. Snake's stubble. Corrin's mad ravings with emerald green eyes. Silverette hair laying in a heap on the floor. A lamp with flies dancing around the bulb. Snake's stubble. Old worn out records. Ballerina slippers. A gem pressed into a forehead. A birthday present. The victrola. The victrola. Robin shall fly, she is a bird and she is no longer going to be hold down by someone else's rules. She is the vice president of the United States, and if she wishes to warrant power, she will warrant some power dammit!

She can hear a familiar tune playing in the back of her head. A gorgeous melody, with rifts and violin scratches against the string, beauty epitomized by a harp and eyes full of emotion. A hand encloses around her, but she realizes that it is Corrin's hand, and she's imaging being locked in a viperish dance with her cohort, her partner in crime, her most trustworthy companion, and her sister from another mother. Corrin's eyes entertain a fanciful gaze, almost child-like and amateurish. They waltz across the tiled floor, and she's shifting between the ginger haired man from earlier, Snake, and back to the viper herself. A beautiful viper with scales that shimmer under the chandelier lights, the piano rifts, and Snake's hushed whispers.

"Corrin losing Cloud was the best thing that's ever happened to her," Robin says, and she realizes it is because her best friend now has confidence... whereas before it seemed that all her husband did is knock her down.

The dance pitches higher and higher until the waltz breaks into a tango. Corrin's grip tightens around her wrist, causing Robin to cry out in pain. Fire shoots through her joints, and she's thrown around across the floor until Corrin pushes the vice president away. Robin collapses onto the tile, and hears a laugh spill from the enemy silverette, a cowl of laughter that boils within her throat that clamors louder and louder and louder until it causes the curtains and the wallpaper to fall off. Corrin laughs and laughs and laughs, spinning wildly in a dazed manner as she stumbles in a drunk stupor around the ballroom. She crashes into one of the violin players, who shatters like glass. Glass clings to Corrin's tasteful black dress, and she cackles, on and on she cackles. Blood begins to pour down Corrin's arms onto the white gloves she's wearing, milky white curdled and tainted by a scorched and bitter crimson that tastes like vinegar and honey. Corrin twirls haphazardly, and her body crashes into the victrola in the middle. Robin watches in dismay as the victrola tips onto the floor, and vanishes, like a shadow into the deep Earth, gone forever. Anger boils deep in the vice president's gut.

"STOP IT!" Robin screams. "You're ruining everything!"

The words play no affect on the president without a leash. Corrin's laugh rises higher until it is a witch's cackle that sends tremors from underneath the floorboards and the tile. Robin curls up into a ball, screaming into the floor until her voice goes hoarse, a rawness burning in her throat with bile pushing up underneath the wave of simmering anger. Corrin's laugh dissipates into a roar, and it is no longer humane, but beastly and threatening, and all Robin can see even behind her clenched eyes is the same ginger who danced with her. An olive skin tone. A gem pressed into his forehead. Stubby fingers. An aura of darkness around him. In his arms lays a woman, her head back, glassy eyes open staring at nothing.

Robin catches a glimpse of her face. "F- Fiora...?" she says weakly, and the pain surmounts.

Corrin's laugh is heard down a corridor, the gemmed man locks eyes with the vice president, and Fiora's body shatters like glass.

The world around her explodes in a fiery blast, and Robin's mind goes dark.

* * *

"Are you sure?"

That is Lucas's first thing out of his mouth as he looks his commander in the eye.

Shulk is pacing the room, hair disheveled, his eyes supporting dark bags under them as it is evident he did not have much sleep, if any at all. He runs a hand through his hair, his lower lip trembling. "I know I said that I didn't want to see her, but I had a nightmare and I didn't know what to do about it and I just need to see Fiora one last time or I might just fall apart. Oh god Lucas help me, help me Lucas. Please..." Shulk has collapsed to his knees by this point.

Lucas looks on in horror, his disk perched on a dresser. Shulk wakes up from another nightmare, twisting away under his covers so he wakes his best friend up at an ungodly hour. "Shulk, calm down!" he yells, taking Lucas aback. He's never raised his voice at anyone or anything, and he didn't think he had it in him. "I can't do it if you're gonna collapse into hysterics."

The commander looks at his AI Unit with a tilted head, eyes glassy and reflective with tears spilling from them. How could his wife's ghost harm him anymore than it already has? What sort of devilry is being played on him at this hour so late in the game? Hasn't he suffered through enough. He's unsure. He doesn't know what's happened to him ever since Fiora departed for that stupid Detroit mission. He wants it all to just vanish from his mind, burn it away in a trash heap and never look at it again. It'll make his life much easier in the morning.

If there is a morning.

"I- I can try..." he struggles to say.

Lucas's facial expression relaxes somewhat, though his brow is still perched up in concern. "Okay... I did some calculating and some double-checking on the procedure," it is as if the programmed eleven year-old pistons himself in the future to become some forty year-old man who's seen every corner of the world and has lived to tell it all. "When Pit got the original prototype for the AI Units, this feature wasn't in there at all. I don't understand physics and time space continuums as much as I should, but I can create a placeholder... a hologram-like image for you inside my memory of this disk, and then transport you physically into the disk..."

Shulk frowns, his tears drying. "In English, if you don't mind, Lucas. I'm not a programmed supercomputer."

The boy blushes. "Umm... I can make a hologram based on you, and teleport you into the disk. Easier?"

"Somewhat," Shulk grumbles. "You don't have to act smart around me, I _know_ you're intelligent."

Lucas looks at the commander with compassion, his tiny robotic heart breaking from just witnessing the pity of it all. "I'm going to ask you again. Are you _sure_ you want to do this?"

"I have to..." Shulk whispers.

"Good enough answer. Give me a moment," Lucas says. His eyes glaze over as tons of screens and menus pop-up in his peripheral. He opens a file called _Hologram Creator_ and waits for the blip to play out in his ears. A moveable camera option appears, as if he had a phone to take a photo. Getting Shulk into full frame, as luckily his commander unfurled himself from the precious ball he had been in. Doing a few other calculations, his completed work appears in front of him on a side menu. He breaks into a grin. "Success!"

"I'm never going to understand programming."

"No one expects you to."

"Glad to know you're in my corner."

"Every time..." Lucas smiles to himself cheekily. He unearths the rules and ordinance guidebook of the AI Unit handbook, with the convoluted belief such a digital document exists. "It says that after I 'vanish', whatever that may mean, all you have to do is touch the outer rim of the disk three times. You'll be broken into cybernetic bits, please don't ask how, it actually is a nasty process, and voila, you'll be with me!" he exclaims jubilantly. Shulk doesn't respond right away, though he is struggling to get to his feet. "Shulk?" Lucas asks again.

"I'm fine, I'm fine."

"Did you hear what I said?"

"Loud and clear."

"We don't have to do this, you know."

"But do we have a choice?" Shulk purses his lips. "For me to get better? For me to move past her? Seeing her gravestone isn't enough, Lucas, and it never has been. It never will be. I _need_ to see her, to feel her, to listen to her voice..."

"She won't be real. It'll just be a fragmented memory. It will _feel_ real at the very least."

Shulk locks his jaw. "I need to do this, Lucas."

The AI Unit nods, consigned and bereft. It looks like he will not be winning this argument. Shulk watches an emotional change on the AI Unit's face, but is unable to pinpoint exactly what his best friend went through. Lucas looks at Shulk, and this time there are tears in _his_ eyes. "Encountering the past is dangerous, Shulk. I care for you. A lot. I- I just don't want to see you get hurt."

Lucas locks in the programmed hologram and closes his eyes to dissipate.

Silence.

All there is left to do is wait.

Lucas's words linger in Shulk's head as the AI Unit begins to disappear from the disk, his lemonade hair being the last glimpse of color on the digital pad before the comforting cyberspace child vanished from view. The commander of Alpha Squad hesitates over the disk, biting down on his lip hard enough to draw blood, the lucid taste of copper filling his mouth.

He's unsure, he's beyond the rational zone of thought. Shulk doesn't know what to expect and the fact that there's a complete air of mystery around the whole deal is leaving him feeling like bugs are crawling all up and down his skin. A venomous millipede on his shoulder, a black and brown tarantula climbing over his ankle... Shulk shakes off the uneasiness, but it still decides to linger, hanging on like the remnants of toilet paper that are wet and sticky and grotesque.

Shulk's hands inch near the disk, fingers splayed out like palm fronds. He touches the outer rim of the pedestal, the metal cold underneath his touch; his senses dull and the blonde realizes he has never _actually_ touched an AI disk before. He's pressed the center console thousands of times that he has the azure glow from the center which summons the AI Units forever entombed in his mind. There are nights where the blonde is constantly plagued by bright, obscene blue flashes and he thinks it's the blitzkrieg, he believes it to be WWIII, he believes it to be anything other than what it actually is.

He doesn't mean to be scared of Lucas turning himself on, a capability that not too many AI Units were ever given, but Shulk finds this companionship reluctant... almost as if Lucas hates him as much as he likes him. What if it's all an act?

The commander of Alpha Squad shakes his head. This is ridiculous. Shulk's going to be standing here, pondering the meaning of life before he actually gets to do something and everyone around him is aged a good thirty plus years. The thought of President Corrin being old and decrepit and having true white, pasty, curdled up milk like skin makes him nearly burst out into laughter.

His fingers press down on the outer edge of the disk. Once. Then twice. He presses it a third time, and a strange... no, it isn't strange, Shulk corrects himself. His entire body suffuses itself with a warmness that is almost familiar, similar to the smell of fresh chocolate chip cookies when his mother made them, or the rugged smell of grass and a refreshing diet cola. He appreciates the smells, the tastes, and it is all happening by Shulk Roberts placing his hand on the edge of Lucas's disk.

A tingling sensation travels down his spine, snipped and effective before he's shuddering all over. His eyes twitch inextricably, where the lid feels to have molded into his cheek bones, but he's in a state of bliss to heed it no mind.

White spots begin to cover his vision, but his eyes are closed which causes a few synaptic messages of panic to fire off before he's taken away by this feeling, this wholesome and hearty feeling of home and completeness.

He squeezes his eyes shut, the white shrouding over him like a snow drift or comforting blanket.

And then...

Nothing.

...

...

...

Shulk snaps awake, a cold sweat running down his forehead. He shakes his head, feeling cold all of a sudden, chills erupting all and down his arms. Was it all a dream?

"No... it can't be a dream," he dissuades himself against even the notion. "It felt too real."

He struggles to his feet, bones rusting away and grinding until Shulk is at full height, examining his vicinity. To then see absolutely nothing. Nada. Zilch. Is this some kind of joke? Is he stuck in a purgatory? Is this heaven?

All around him is a pearly white mist, on and on it seems to go, a never ending plain of fog that makes it nigh impossible to see anything. Shulk's heart climbs and rests in his throat, the blonde feeling panicked. Something is wrong. Lucas has tricked him! That blonde fiend!

"Lucas?" he calls out. "Lucas? Anyone?"

Then, he sees it. Or, he sees... something, rather, that'd make a better description. Shulk squints, unable to truly decipher what is walking towards him, but there's enough to distinguish some black body mass shuffling towards him in a slow walk. There's a glided bend of the hips, as if the person is swaying, and it looks feminine like. It can't be Lucas. This person seems too tall in the shroud to be Lucas, that AI Unit's real projected height is not even four and a half feet yet.

The figure gets closer, and Shulk's skin tightens. His eyes widen imperceptibly, and he's gaping his mouth open, stepping in tune with the mysterious person in the fog. He catches a sight of blonde hair flowing, a radiant stock of corn or a lucky pot of gold sprinkling down rich coins... and he's now face-to-face with the stranger in the mist, and Shulk is out of words to speak.

No.

It can't be.

It's impossible. There's no way.

He pinches himself to make sure he isn't dreaming. He's not. He's not, this is actually happening and there in the flesh she is.

"F- Fiora..." he chokes, eyes brimming with tears.

There she is, Fiora Roberts. His deceased wife stands at his height, dressed in an elegant navy blue gown that hugs her form perfectly. Shulk's lower lip begins to quiver, and he's pretty sure he's in a mixture between sobbing and laughing wildly. He runs at her first, calling her name to the wind as the white mist flees from his joy. Fiora breaks into a smile as well, running at him and then the two collide in a clash of blonde hair, pale flesh, and broken hearts. Shulk reaches her first, throwing his arms around her in a hug. Fiora hugs back, and a gentle warmness floods his body, and Shulk is smiling and he's laughing and he's dancing, twirling his wife around, picking her up in his arms, and he's on a euphoric trip like no other. His laugh rebounds against the walls of the world that he's in, and he's staring into a pocket full of sunshine, her eyes aglow, her heart on fire, and he's never been so happy in his entire life.

He sits her down after a few moments, her laugh filling his ears. The two stand in front of each other, heads so close to touching that sparks ignite and their hawkish diamond stares are lowered to a more calm level. Fiora breaks into a smile, and Shulk's grinning back with her. He's crying, he's pretty damn sure of that with the wetness coating his cheeks.

"I- is... is this real?" he lets out after a few breathlessly exhilarating moments.

She nods. "It's real, darling..." Fiora whispers in his ear, getting close to him. He can touch her. He _can_ touch her. _He_ can touch her. He can _touch_ her. He can touch _her._ This is his happiest day of his life, and he's not even sure anymore where exactly he even is, but that's irrelevant at this moment and time.

"Where are we?" Shulk croaks.

"A haven..." she answers, and the memories are flooding back to him.

Their first date, at a local drive in movie theater that still existed, and they saw a chilling classic from Alfred Hitchcock and Shulk still remembers the taste of her lingering apple chap stick on his lips, like tangible globules of glue where the feeling will never leave. A private beach in Normandy, the pebbled shores and glistening rocks that glow like charcoal shards of graphite and the ripe brown of the sand and soil and the overbearing yet comfortable heat of the sun. Her face smiling against his as he kisses her.

Holding the letter in his hands that she's going to actually have a baby, that being a surrogate has worked and everything's alright and will forever remain to be alright... he cannot hold back the tears. Corrin's genuine and pleased smile as the two sign their names on the Syrenet contracts, dark and foreboding midnight ink signing away their lives onto manila parched papers forever stowed away in some folder on a shelf in some office in some building in some city in some country. None of that matters now, none of it has ever mattered.

"What are you doing here?" Shulk knits his eyebrows together. He's waiting for the jest. He's waiting for the joke. The blonde is expecting party balloons to drop from some invisible ceiling, and nothing is happening except the two of them and their loving conversation that couldn't be any more perfect than it already was. Shulk puts a hand up as if he's touching a mirror that separates him from some dazzling sea creature.

Fiora follows suit, and their hands are touching. Shulk is electrified, azure eyes sharp and focused and mesmerized, he doesn't know where to look or even how to feel. "I love you..."

"You're real..." he whispers. "I can _touch_ you. You're wholesome."

"I know... I am..." Fiora blinks, and she's holding back tears as well.

He hugs her again, tightly, and there's an outpouring of emotion. "I've missed you so much. You don't even know..." Shulk whispers in her ear.

When the two break again, there are clearly tears in Fiora's eyes. Shulk wants to take a personal, recorded note of this date and the fact that there seems to be a lot of crying going around his companions. He doesn't remember the exact level of happiness he had felt when Fiora announced that she had been truly, _truly_ pregnant. Shulk opens the great book of God once again, the Bible resting against his alarm clock, and he pours into the Word, crying so hard that the pages clump together from the moistness of his tears. When everything is ripped away from him again, he throws the Bible in the garbage and ignites it. God can't be so cruel.

Fiora searches Shulk's face for an expanse of emotion, anything to hint at truth. "I'm so proud of you, darling. You've- you've grown so much."

"I missed you. You have no idea how much I missed you." He takes her hand in his, and he notes how cold they are. Cold as ice, with frost and cramped joints, and the sound of snapping bones. But one look back at his wife's eyes and he's sucked into a whirlpool of harmony and days running out into the fields of Kansas with a child leaping in their arms. She's grown too, likewise as he has, but she's gotten taller, her form has filled out even more, and those diamond eyes shine brighter than anything in the starry night sky. She's a beautiful woman.

"Syrenet is flourishing under you," Fiora smiles, but Shulk frowns. That didn't seem real to him. A smile with jagged glass for teeth, hollow and beady halcyon eyes that are painstaking and stabbing, and he tries to avoid the subject.

"How's Delilah?" he asks.

Fiora's frown is the only answer that he needs. "Delilah?"

"Our... our daughter," Shulk's voice chokes on air, and he's gripping her cold hands again, wanting them to wrap around his neck so he can forever join his wife in an everlasting tide of joy and hugs and lovemaking beneath the stars. "Delilah, our daughter. The baby girl you were carrying. Honey, don't- don't you remember her?"

Fiora's gaze is broken, distanced, and it is as if a signal is being jarred in and out from a satellite. Her jaw is parted halfway open, her eyes lost in the recourse of thought. "The baby... I lost the baby."

He looks down at his shoes, and is surprised to see that he doesn't have any. Nothing but his bare feet and he's suddenly quite cold by the mist. "It's okay. She's somewhere. You and I can find her together."

"I lost the baby in Detroit..." Fiora continues to say, completely ignoring her husband's gentle and strengthening words. The blonde woman looks wildly around the misty field of nothingness, just an endless white plain with clouds that roll low on the ground. "Where... where is he... where..." Fiora begins to breath heavily, and she's panicking, panicking with a force of a thousand winds behind every belabored breath.

"Where's what? Where's who?" Shulk grabs at his wife's body, his wife's body who is strangely warm after being so, _so_ cold. "Fiora, honey, what's wrong?"

She suddenly grabs at his arms, causing Shulk to yelp. "Promise me, Shulk! Promise me!"

"Promise you what?"

"Don't go back there. Don't go to Detroit!"

"I- I don't know if we are or not!"

"Don't let Corrin convince you to go there. We can't go back! I'm in danger!"

"How? You're-" Shulk cannot believe he is about to say this aloud. "You're dead! No one can hurt you anymore!"

"He's always watching," Fiora clenches her teeth, and her fingernails dig into Shulk's arm. The pain is insurmountable. "He's always listening. He knows we're talking. I can't stay here anymore. I'm compromised, Shulk! Don't you see? I'm compromised!"

"What are you going on about?" he looks at her as if she has lost her damn mind. It in itself may not be that far off.

"The master tells him who to go after. She's always keeping tabs on him... that fiend," she spits the word 'fiend' out like a snake, each syllable drenched and coated in a venomous liquid. "He knows because _she_ tells _him_ about us. It's how I got found out. That bitch!"

"Fiora, you're not making any sense."

"Promise me you won't go back to Detroit! PROMISE ME!"

"I WILL!" Shulk screams, and to shut her up, he slams his mouth on hers. His voice echoes forever, an endless echo of words and it continues on and on like a running wheel in his heart. When the two break apart once more, Fiora's eyes have softened, and they're shining like precious jewels once more. He knows that it is cliché and all, but they are orbs full of soul, beauty, remorse, depth, and conviction. He holds her by her sides. "I will not go back to Detroit, Fiora. I promise."

"If you do, you're as dead as me..." she whispers.

"It's just us in this world. No one else matters."

"I love you..."

"I love you too."

The fog surrounds them, and Shulk leans in to kiss her. She closes her eyes and politely waits. He connects his mouth to her, slowly and it is painful almost, the feeling of being gone away from her for so long. He can taste everything in this one shared intimate moment, he can hear everyone on Earth speaking to him, and he's an immortal being of human knowledge and a version of Pandora's Box in the flesh. Shulk continues the kiss, and when he opens his eyes... she's gone.

"Fiora?" he calls out again, almost wanting to scream.

A rolling tide of whiteness begins to pull back, and standing a few feet away is Lucas. His AI Unit has tears in his eyes, his shoes with their shoelaces unlaced, and he steps over. The fog begins to recede, Shulk looking around, twirling around and wondering what is going on when he notices Lucas. A stare of unmistakable rage consumes Shulk. He steps forward to give the youthful boy a piece of his mind when he stops. Something glints in Lucas's eyes, an emotion that is unreadable, and it is everything the blonde commander is not.

Love. Caring. Compassion. Wonder. Excitement. Sorrow. Loss. Exhilaration. Tiredness. Loneliness. Pleasure. Sentience. Consciousness. Anger. Rage. Fury. Decadence. Honesty. Truth. Zealous. Creative. Home.

The fog has completely disappeared.

Lucas steps forward, eyes glistening with tears, as if he's witnessed something magical, which he very well has. "I- I have never seen anything like it."

Shulk swallows, Fiora's feeling is gone from his body. She _was_ right there! She was with him! "Where'd she go? Where'd Fiora go?"

"That wasn't Fiora, Shulk."

"No... what?" the commander of Alpha Squad tilts his head over, not following. "I- I don't understand. Lucas, she was right there! Touching me! Kissing me! I lifted her in my arms! How can you tell me that she wasn't real?"

"You were interacting with a memory, Shulk. I pieced her together for you," Lucas admits, walking forward. "I _said_ that it wouldn't be real."

"But it felt it!"

"That's because it was and at the same time _was_ not real."

Shulk wipes a hand over his mouth, the two stuck inside this endless white plain of nothingness, and yet there is comfort. Lasting comfort, like a hearth deep in his gut. "What was she talking about? A master? Some guy who's after her? If that was supposed to be memories of her, I do not recall her _ever_ saying that."

Lucas shakes his head back and forth, a frown on his face. "I didn't program that. Shulk, I don't know what that was."

"Are you saying someone artificially created those memories from _outside_ of your programming database?"

Lucas shrugs. "I was afraid to interrupt it. I don't know what would've happened had I done it."

Shulk looks around aimlessly, and he wants to cry again. "She was right there. Right there, Lucas. I held her. I kissed her. She laughed. Laughed! And I heard her. Like that, she's gone."

Part of him is beyond upset that all he managed to snag is a few moments, precious moments shrouded in darkness and a blackness that didn't exist from before. He's unsure what any of this means, ranging from all of his nightmares to the moments of doubt that he had with a vision of a man with a jewel in his head... and all Shulk wants is rest. All he wants is peace.

Another part of him is happy. He got his wish, to see his wife, to speak to her, and to feel her.

He looks around, and the ground starts to spin. A feeling of numbness fills his mouth, and he can no longer feel his tongue or his teeth or _anything_ at all. He begins to shake, getting Lucas's attention.

"Shulk?" Lucas asks. Shulk's eyes roll into the back of his head, and he collapses. "Shulk!"

The last the blonde commander remembers is his AI Unit racing over to him, a lock of Fiora's sunbeam hair, and Corrin's frowning face glaring down at him before the world goes white.

A fade into nothingness.

Least he's glad he got to see Lucas's Nebular Network before he died.

* * *

 **And there we are ladies and gents! That was Chapter #25: Lucas's Nebular Network! I really, _really_ hope that was worth the wait, which I once again severely apologize for. (Broken record, broken record) The amount of time I have been waiting to get this chapter out finally has amounted, and since there was a good month+ hiatus on this chapter, I made sure to pack it in as tightly as I could, but clearly there's a lot to discuss.**

 **Out of all the characters in Syrenet, it seems that Robin has the easiest one - besides Ness, Lucas, and well... Pit, I suppose, but we haven't learned a lot about him - and the reason for that is because since Robin takes the motherly role to heart, she's the most homely of them all and has the most 'humble' background I can think of in terms of there not being a whole lot of tragedy surrounding her, even though a parental death or disappearance is heavy too. Writing her and Snake like little high school teenagers is proving to be a new pastime of mine, but I blame that on my Teach Me How to Cry days from two years ago (good god that story was two years ago) What do you think the meaning of Robin's several visions were, because clearly she is either going through, or actually witnessing something quite serious.**

 **Between the Robin/Snake, and the Shulk/Lucas/Fiora scene, I do not know which I like more. I am really torn about Shulk because his character actually, physically makes me depressed to write at times because he is so heavy and for this story to be as good as I want it to be, I _have_ to get into his mind. I cried writing he and Fiora's first part of the conversation, before shit hit the fan once more. There are actual, genuine nice moments in this story, but not yet... for a bit at least. Who do you think Fiora is afraid of, for this man that she mentions, and for the woman? It is clear that Shulk, Fiora, and Robin now have all envisioned or seen some man with a gem on his head... so... his role, you think? Their storyline and the mystery surrounding her death is my favorite part of the entire story, to be honest.**

 **I cannot wait for the next chapter, Chapter #26: Blindsided in the Back, as it is time for the arc of Chicago to reach a boiling point. Any plot predictions? Because, if you think about the title, our favorite blonde rebel who is in town, and the specialty of what the Syrenet crew is about to do, there's clearly something brewing. Thank you all so much for reading! Please make sure to review, as I'd love to hear what you had to say. Have an amazing day! I love you all so much! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	26. Chapter 26: Blindsided in the Back

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #26: Blindsided in the Back. I know this is like five or six days early - it has been a long time since I've ever posted _ahead_ of schedule - but I have to say that this chapter just had to be written and I could not stand still. It is just as long as the ending chapter of Arc 2, meaning shit it about to go down. Last chapter dealt with Shulk getting one last conversation in with Fiora, a calm before the storm if you will, and a chapter that brought me to tears quite frankly. I'm afraid that this holds up here too... time to see if any predictions come true. Review replies!**

 **Guest- When I had first read the first line of your review, I thought you were saying you didn't like the chapter! xD I got upset a little bit, because I thought I pulled out all the stops with this one, but I was reassured. Thank you so much for your kind words! When I write this story, I can literally be having the worst day, and just thinking about what happens later on in this piece gets me amped up even further. Expressing the characters thoughts is why I love 3rd person present tense so much, it does just that. Hold onto that guess!**

 **Metroid-Killer- That's a thing indeed. And thank you, I'm glad for the compliment. There's a bit of action in this chapter that makes me quite nervous for how it'll be received, but I'm sure I did pretty good. Every character pretty much does have a negative backstory. The only ones we know either a little or nothing about are Lucas (he can't have a tragic backstory, he simply isn't tragic to begin with), Cloud, Pit, Ness, and, truth be told, Snake. The external influence... it's gonna be a doozy.**

 **Mr. Squirtle6- I love your reviews. Just, _thank you._ Robin isn't necessarily f'd up, because she is perhaps the sanest one of them all. Everything that happened in the ballroom was all in her head, but the significance of what happened is something that won't be revealed until much later. Thank you for the compliment; part of my reason why I love this story so much is the characters through and through. While they may be tragic and depressing, there is something sincere and enjoyable with them that I cannot drift away from. Shulk and Fiora had me crying too, the mechanics of that was quite difficult to vocalize. Good to hear that #25 was your favorite, but I think this one here, #26, and pretty much all of Arc 4 will dethrone #25.**

 **Thanks for the reviews guys! Keep them coming! Enjoy Chapter #26: Blindsided in the Back.**

* * *

Sheik brings the warm cup of cocoa up to her lips, savoring in the clash of bitter and sweet flavor, the liquid being quite hot. She curses, almost dropping the coffee cup on the table, eliciting a few awkward stare from the other patrons in the lobby of the hotel. She doesn't mind them, instead stirring it some more with her spoon, adding a few more sugar packets in. Her gaze is transfixed on a television screen in the corner, hoisted on one of the walls in the corner. She's mad at herself for sleeping in, as today _is_ the day she makes history; she'll make her name known across the country and around the world. There's been whispers circulating the hotel as she's heard a few guests at the pool or walking back to their room speaking of this 'amazing' gift being given from the silver snake herself.

The rebel can only think of one thing; a Syrenet branch is being implemented sometime soon. She needs to act, and act fast unless the opportunity goes slipping through her fingers. She wants to stand in front of her father and put her hands on her hips to proudly declare that she's done a great service to her country. Rooting the enemy out root and stem is what she's been told to do all her life. What does it matter if it happens to the be the president? A single penny in her cup.

She takes a bite of her waffle, the butter giving the golden pastry a shimmering gloss of fluorescent yellow, and if she aligns it just right under one of the lights, it's the same color as her hair. Just adding a few extra thousand milligrams of sodium and caloric uptake through the high heaven, and she's good. As crumbs spray everywhere from her latest bite, the news channel on the TV screen switches stories.

The anchor is a man, but Sheik doesn't really care about the new face, but rather what's under it. In big, acrylic white letters for a headline, a statement is written. _Syrenet dedication today at noon, in front of the Town Square. The president, vice president, director of the FBI, and numerous employees of the Syrenet corporation shall be at the event._

It as if a wire is triggered somewhere inside Sheik's brain. She sits back in her chair, hands gripping the edge of the table, unsure of what to do... how to move. She bites on the outer rim of her lip. Is there enough time to make preparations? A few of her cohorts are currently licking their wounds in another part of the city after their failed attack the night most of the Syrenet group went drinking.

Her hands are elevated, stuck in the air, unsure of what to do. A noise hits her ears from far off, dull and quiet, a slow rumble that buzzes up and down her left side. Sheik is slow to realize that it's her phone that's going off like berserk. She fumbles for it like she had with the coffee cup, pulling it out as fast as she could. The caller ID reads: _Amber._

Sheik's heart soars. _Amber._ _Amber can fix this._ She hits 'accept' and puts the device up to her ear. There is so much energy wrapped in the blonde's body that she's bobbing up and down on her heels like an excited little child, eager to get ready and get the show on the road.

"Amber?" she says excitedly. "Amber?"

"I take it that you just saw the news?"

"Yes!" Sheik almost shouts, once more gaining awkward stares with a few glares mixed in. She wants to pull out her pistol and shoot them all dead if it gave her peace and quiet. An opportunity is here and she's not about to let it slip through her fingers like sand; a failed sandcastle will not be the sum of her ambitions and all the hard work she's endured since the beginning. It's _her_ that is staying up till the wee hours of the morning with sketches of city plans, summaries of Syrenet's 'goals', contact numbers for associates around the country, arguing - oh the arguing - for weapons, the training, and the moment when she puts her plans into action. No one has done as much as she had, and no one will do as much as she has done after she passes into the soft ground. There's been a few bumps along the way, but that isn't something she catches herself up with.

"Then take my word of advice," Amber's tone is almost motherly. Sheik snorts. Amber is not fit to be a mother. "Don't."

That brings the party train to a halt. Sheik feels like she slammed into a wall going a hundred miles an hour, with copper filling her mouth, a bitterness far worse than stale coffee sitting on her tongue. The lines in her vision blur, the sound becomes distorted, and she's looking at the phone as if it's radioactive. Did she just say what she thought she just heard? No? _No?_ How dare she! After all the two have been through!

"No?" Sheik hisses. "No?"

"No," Amber says it again, this time firm and final. "Don't threaten me, Sheik. Even in an inebriated state I could kick your ass."

The blonde leans into her phone to avoid the steely looks and the conspicuousness flowing her way. "I _am_ not letting this opportunity go to waste!"

"An opportunity to do what? Kill all of them?"

"If it comes down to that."

"What happened to not killing anyone?"

"It's war."

"This isn't war, Sheik. You're just a little girl playing at one."

That is a slap to the face. Sheik reels back in her chair from that, white rage flooding her vision. Underneath, a volcano begins to boil in her stomach, billowing, burning, raging, and all for one particularly nasty woman. Sheik has never heard Amber be so against her plans, and she's unsure exactly why she's starting now. This hasn't happened between them in a long time, not since they met if the blonde recalls correctly.

"I will pretend that you did not just hear you say that."

"Pretend away," Amber dismisses Sheik's scorn with the wave of her hand; the rebel can practically feel the sarcasm oozing out of every pore. "It won't make a difference."

"When this is over, I am so going to-"

"Going to what?" the other woman interrupts her. "Kill me? You very well know you can't do that. You need me. I'm the angel on your shoulder. I die, you lose every credible sense of morality and goodness in you."

Sheik's hands envision strangling Amber. Pale hands wrapping around an olive-green complexion, scarlet hair spilling around her fingertips, the hair color matching the bruises and splotches marking Amber's neck as Sheik squeezes and squeezes. Life begins to drain out of the emerald stare, and Amber's clawing at the blonde's body, but she's unrelenting in her fury. _I am the storm. You are the shipwreck. When a storm encounters a ship, it is destroyed and wrecked, and that is what I have become to you. I am unhinged. I am as dark as the night. I am Syrenet's worst nightmare._

"Maybe I want you gone."

"Even you aren't that foolish for that," Amber laughs bitterly. "I've never even got to ask you. This whole 'war' of attrition... what exactly are you fighting against?"

"Syrenet," Sheik replies, her words as smooth as cream.

"That's great, but you never directly stated anything," the rebel goes to interrupt, but Amber has make a stuttered cluck with her tongue. "Syrenet hasn't been able to launch one successful branch here in the States. Why? Because of groups like you and the West coast who simply won't give them a chance. Hell, I've had inside cover for _weeks_ and I still don't know what's up! So, tell me Miss Rebel Queen, what exactly are you fighting against, concerning Syrenet."

"We've been over this before."

"No, we haven't."

"Something just seems off about it," Sheik elaborates, rolling her eyes. While she's here debating the morality of pushing an all-out attack against these corrupt villains of the state, those same corrupt enemies are digging their stake deeper into the Midwest territory, marking up the soil with the mark of the beast and the smell of greed and vileness pouring from every crevice there is to be found. "Free technology. Free suits of armor for the police and coast guard and state militias... it _has_ to have a catch!"

"And what do you think this catch is?"

"Mind control!"

Amber laughs, but it comes out more like a mixture of a snarky bark. " _Mind control?_ Mind control? Jesus! Sheik, do you even hear yourself?"

"Don't laugh at me!" Sheik yells back into the phone. "I'm serious!"

"I hope you were on meds before, and simply you've just lost them."

"I'm going ahead with my plan."

"And pray tell what is it?"

"As if I'm going to share it with you."

"Thousands could die."

"Thousands die all over the world," Sheik spits, her voice full of venom; she's seen the photos of malnourished children with their bowl-like stomachs, the ribs jutting out like mountain ranges, the hunger evident in their eyes as they cry and sob, yet no crops are produced from the rain of their tears; fake promises given by the leaders of the world... and if her fabled hero country, the United States of America, allows world hunger, who's say to total domination is not that far off? "Sometimes innocents act as collateral for good things."

"Good things doesn't include dismantling what could be our country's saving grace."

"If any more words like that come out of your mouth, I'm hanging up."

"You're crazy," Amber stutters a chuckle, her voice breaking into an airy peal of laughter. "I never really thought about it, but Sheik Braring, you're _fucking_ crazy."

Sheik smirks at the phone. "I'll embrace my craziness, thank you very much."

"I'll be in the area. For the meeting. I see you or any of your posse friends, I'm ending the operation where it stands."

"I'd like to see you try."

The blonde is met with the buzz of static. Sheik sets her phone down on the table, looking back up at the TV screen. The news station had moved on by now to a different story, but she's heard all that she's needed to hear. She pictures him - Sheik's father - on a hill, and although he's not dead, he's dressed all in white like an angel. She goes running up the hill, embracing him like she once did as a child, and he swings her up and around with vigor, vitality pouring out of his muscles. They'll hug, and he'll break into a grin that causes Sheik to smile. _I'm proud of you, my darling. I'm so, so proud of you! Your mother is too._

Sheik downs the rest of her coffee, gasping in exhilaration as the last murky drop vanishes behind porcelain lips, and she's standing up, pushing her chair in. She grabs her phone, flipping it back open. Putting on a pair of shades, a pair that had been nestled in the opening of her shirt, she simply nods at the man sitting - rather, he's sleeping - behind the concierge desk.

She walks through the sliding glass doors, feeling the warmth of the sun soak into her skin, the beautiful feeling of love and a new era rushing headlong to meet her. The blonde dials another number into her phone, putting it up to her ear to hear the melodious ringing, and the voice of a confidant, _her_ confidant, and a man who will never fail her.

"Zant? It's Sheik. Good, good, glad to see you're up. Meet me a few blocks behind the town square, downtown Chicago. See the news. A Syrenet meeting. It's time, Zant. It's _finally_ time. And dammit, we're gonna win this thing!"

Sheik finishes her call, smiles, and places one hand on the butt of her pistol, the weapon hidden behind the covering of her jacket.

She's going to enjoy putting a bullet between Corrin Etch's eyes, and it'll be a joy that she cannot wait to experience, even if it kills her.

* * *

There's too much noise fluttering around the complex. Marth deduces it to himself as he's sitting on the floor in the foyer, waiting for the rest of the group to finish getting ready. Amicable noise floats from the hallways, out of the bathrooms, it spirals out of the kitchen and from the floorboards. Why is the world so damn happy? He's certainly not. An evident lack of sleep is apparent on his face, from the slightly worn out bags of shadows under his eyes, or the fact his hair hasn't even been run through with a comb.

He's wasted all of his time getting into his Syrenet suit, a piece of metallic junk that he hasn't seen in what's felt like eons. When he's in his bedroom holding the helmet that goes with it in his hands, he flips the visor up and down to get a look at his reflection. He isn't exactly thrilled by what he sees; dryness and a lack of life stirring from within, eyes that gaze but do not emote, a forever creased brow to exemplify his worry, and hidden from the visor view, an insurmountable weight of the world. As the leading commander of the mission, he's the one who organized the perimeter, he's the one who has to be the first person to jump into the fray should anything go wrong... he'll be the first one who goes running when the copper is spilled, he'll be the first to scream in terror as a vigilante comes running full speed at him with a knife. He'll be the first one to call it quits, to drop his suit in a fit of fury. He's waiting for the onset of a panic attack, but nothing is coming up or rising from deep within. Yet. There's always a yet.

Marth's clutching a wooden totem in his hands, having taken it from one of the board games Pit packed the night before. His book is stuck in a backpack that's nestled in one of the crooks of his room. The story has been quite engaging, a much better medieval fantasy of a foreign knight from a faraway land striking a deal with a native queen, their story of falling tragically in love, and the war that bequeaths the continent from the queen's blatant stupidity at being incapable of seeing when her friends are no longer her friends anymore. The reason why he grabs the totem is that since there's no time to get delved back into his book without being jarred out of it, his hands need something to do.

Resting against his leg is his AI Unit's disk. He _could_ turn it on, but he chooses not to. He doesn't want to hear his AI Unit's nagging voice in his head. In truth, Marth has one of the most supportive digital pieces of technology ever created in Syrenet's history, aside from Lucas. Her name is Lucina, modeled to be a somewhat spitting image of him with the blue hair, blue eyes, and an outfit decked entirely out in an azure color. He smirks to himself, a slight upturn of one of the corners of his mouth, all because Lucina fills his head with confidence and bravado, but the moment he turns his head away from her, it's filled with shallow thoughts. _You're not good enough. You'll never be good enough. All Corrin thinks of you is that you're a failure. Ike really doesn't like you, it's just a ruse to earn your trust..._

A shadow looms over Marth's form, and it causes the bluenette to look up. He's half expecting to see Ike staring down at him with a frown, because it seems to be the same ole, same ole clinical depression that runs the circuit, but Marth's surprised to see that it's Mac of all people. He hasn't really spoken all that much to the secret service agent, for Mac has this façade of being one of those tried and true men, a _manly man_ who doesn't take no for an answer and would find Marth's weakness and depression to be the ruining of him.

However, Mac's awed face is not what he expects as the beginning of the conversation.

"What is it?" Marth asks.

"I haven't gotten to see a suit yet. It looks... it looks... cool." Mac's eyes are wide, scrutinizing over every inch of Pit's handiwork like a kid in a candy store.

"Yeah, they're quite cool. Pit worked hard on them," the commander agrees.

On the simplest basis on describing a Syrenet suit, it is fashioned after a piece of armor, but looks quite no different from a tuxedo that has a glossy sheen to it. The pockets are lined like a utility belt, full of grenades, pistols, knives, and other firearms that could be the difference between dead and alive. Putting on the helmet and visor allows for the AI Unit to get inside the suit, attaching the disc to the spot provided by the left temple. Lowering the visor gives the AI Unit a workspace to program other functions in the Syrenet suit, like shoot missiles, have a bird's-eye view of the battlefield, scan for incoming enemies and weapons, and act as a metaphorical guy on their six. On the current mission, only Shulk, Ike, and Marth have suits of their own, while Roy's is almost like a fish out of water without having an AI Unit in his head to help direct him.

Marth wonders where Roy's AI Unit went. He scours over the names in his head. _Lucina. Lyn. Lucas. Kuro. Dedede. Lucario._ It's quite laughable how many of the names begin with the letter 'L', but Marth digresses his train of thought. _Ness,_ Marth remembers. Roy's AI Unit's name had been Ness, and all the bluenette remembers is Shulk muttering that the poor fellow had to be put out of commission for faulty programming. Lucas's heartbroken face shall forever be engraved in the commander's face, but it any time Marth finds himself thinking about it, he frowns.

He's been working with Syrenet for years and never once has heard of faulty programming. What is destitute as faulty programming? Who's fault would it be, Pit's or the AI's? As Shulk puts it when pressed for an answer that doesn't sound so fake, the reason is that Ness obtains access for a file he's not supposed to see, accidentally leaked it, and is put out of his misery for the error.

" _A grave error,"_ Marth intones darkly. " _Anything we do is grave._ "

The bluenette has been so wrapped up in his own thinking that he doesn't see Mac shuffling his hands, standing in a different corner over by the wall. The secret service agent tosses a glance back at the commander, then to his shoes, commander, shoes, and does this several more times, thinking that Marth doesn't see it. After a few more minutes of this, it finally sets an uneasy feel over the bluenette's skin.

"What's wrong?" he asks again.

"I shouldn't say," Mac apologizes, his face flushing.

"You've been looking at me for the past three minutes. Something's up."

"I've just been thinking..."

"About?" Marth raises an eyebrow.

"It's- it's inappropriate..." Mac looks ashamedly down at his feet, shuffling them on the tiled floor.

Marth looks at the secret service agent in confusion, but half of him goes through a cycle of remembrance. When he looks at the ex-boxer, the ex-Wal-Mart security guard, the ex-alcoholic, and now the new leader of the secret service personnel, he sees himself. A youthful man, although if Marth does the math correctly, _Mac_ is older than him. A youthful man dropped into a cage of lions, with nowhere to turn to, and getting thrust into his hands a lot of information to take in. When someone's arms overflow with items and pieces that they have no use for, the pile becomes dead weight, heavy weight, and a weight that sits on your mind for eons to come. A lasting impression that you're somehow failing at keeping people safe, that the president is never happy for you, and that no matter what you do, it's never right.

There's a connection between them, Marth realizes, but how so is quite hard to articulate. He doesn't have the jealousy issues that Mac has, as the bluenette is not blind at seeing how Mac flashes glares at Roy whenever the redhead is fixed at something else, or the possessiveness that creeps up in the secret service agent's voice whenever he's talking with Midna, and how he ignores or misses Midna's gazes _back_ at Roy with a bit lip and a look of worry plastered in her eyes. Mac is always, _always_ apologizing to his superiors, in a way that it becomes annoying more than endearing. Worrying that things are always going wrong, worrying that Corrin will never be happy. Worried that the jaw of the leviathan that it is Washington D.C and the political schemes that surround it are shutting you in till there's no light, no air, and no hope.

An emotion that surges between those involved in the Etch administration is the feeling of being heartbroken, knowing that things are not going your way and that they'll perhaps never go your way. Marth concludes on the fifth day on the job as a new Syrenet commander that the pressure involved in making sure the cogs run right and are well-oiled is harder than it sounds, with seventy people trying to murder you each day, or employees that compromise themselves willingly to fault a mission as their heart is no longer in it. A few of his old bullies' faces flash as Marth thinks this, and he wonders about their fates. Are the beggars on the side of the road? Do they hold out a pitiful cup that is stalwart gray, representing their hopes and dreams that died and were spout up like a whale? Marth thought that would be what he'd turn into should he fail, but his thoughts shift, and they've shifted far to a place that is darker than before.

If Marth fails, he dies, and if he dies, then there's nothing left for him to do.

An itch begins to pester him on the back of his neck, a curiosity in him that is insatiable, and he has to ask.

"I've heard worse. What is it?"

Mac looks at Marth, and all the light in his eyes is gone, but there's no tears, no reflective substance other than a lack of empathy. "I've-" Mac swallows hard, and the bluenette can hear the moving of his throat all the way from his spot. "I've been thinking about Oklahoma," Blood roars in Marth's ears. "I only heard bits and pieces... but it happened on one of these days, didn't it? When the rebels attacked the town hall?"

It's Marth's turn to swallow the coarse rock that is his Adam's apple. He nods solemnly. "You're right. Ike and I both lost a lot of good, _good_ men that day. We were overwhelmed, and we had misinterpreted the situation. A simple riot, and none of us thought it was any different from those we encountered before. Then this girl emerges from the crowd," as Marth is retelling the incident, the sounds play off in his head. A ferocious head of blonde hair, haunting blue eyes, a piercing gaze. A burning flag, copper running down his hands, Ike's voice screaming in his ear, the explosion of gravel, blood filling his mouth, and wide eyes staring at nothing. His eyes aglow when he speaks of Sheik, like a fire has taken ahold of him. "She possessed this spirit of carnal energy, belief flowing from her words. Conviction," he locks eyes with Mac, who shudders from his steely gaze. "I hadn't seen something like this before, on that grand of a scale. A weakness of ours was exposed, and then they fell upon us like raindrops. Outgunned, outnumbered... it was a losing fight, yet Ike and I stayed behind to see it through to the bitter end. I'd do it all over again and die if I had to if got us rid of that girl who started it all, mark my words."

The secret service agent breaks the gaze first. "Do you think something is going to happen today?"

Marth shrugs. "There's a possibility. There's always a possibility. One of the things you need to learn in Syrenet is to expect the worst, and actually have it happen."

"And if we're attacked by rebels?"

"We kill them all."

"Would they seriously try something again? We've already exposed them that night we went out-"

"By the skin of our teeth," Marth nods. He had been knocked unconscious, his details of the story filled in by Ike and Roy who tell it with heavy hearts; Marth is filled with a sadness, an irrevocable sadness that he once again sits on for his uselessness. "Snake called them out, and I figure they'd rather _not_ be seen as cowards if they can help it. Hell's fury is quite scorning."

"Thinking about it fills me with rage," Mac says through gritted teeth, hands clenching into fists.

"Good," Marth says with a smile. "Use that rage to protect Corrin and Robin, and there'll be no issues."

He gets up, his bones protesting, creaking, and groaning through a range of motions. Marth feels like an old tin man, who instead of having a missing heart, there's a gap where his confidence should be. A hole, a gaping hole with gusts of air that blow through it. Mac bites his lip, looking up at the ceiling with a sigh.

"I just don't want anything to go wrong. I'm worried."

"Well, try not to worry," Marth provides support, knowing in the back of his mind that what he just said has to qualify as the single worst piece of advice he's ever given a person, but he can be billed. He claps Mac on the shoulder, several inches taller than the man now that he has a better look. "We'll be fine. Nothing's going to go wrong."

He walks back to his old perch, grabbing his helmet and Lucina's AI disk in his hand. Turning to Mac, he smirks once, putting the helmet over his head. Flicking the visor down, the normal world of color is doused in a halcyon glow that spins him round and round on a champagne trip. He presses the AI disk into the allocated slot, hearing the mechanical whirs and gears spinning into place. A musical flourish indicates that Lucina is in place, and if he calls on her, she'll be responding inside the helmet within a fraction of a second.

Mac settles his shoulders back, dressed handsomely in his suit and tux, straightening out the edges. "I trust you. Let's do this."

"Glad to hear it," Marth smiles.

Inside his head, without Lucina's confidence to bolster himself, the man's will crumbles. He pities Mac.

Trusting Marth has to be the worst decision he'll ever make in his life.

* * *

It's unbearably hot.

That's Mac's first thought as he stands underneath the hot sun, the stone partition that the separate members of Syrenet were standing on distanced partially away from Robin, Corrin, and Snake. The other members - Mac, Midna, Roy, Ike, Marth, Pit, Shulk, and their respective AI Units - cram themselves onto the second floor of one of the restaurants next to the three most important people in the entire country. Mac's unsure whether or not he's more bugged by the heat or that, given his title as a Secret Service agent, he's relegated - demoted, rather - to stand with the has-beens of the U.S government, and not actually protecting who's he ordered to protect.

There's also the little, itty bitty factor that he's wearing one of those black suit and tie tuxedos, as he always needs to look the part. Being in ninety-five degree heat definitely gets him a ragged look, one of disheveled appearances with sweaty hair matting his head, beads dripping down his face like condensation off of a water bottle, and the tired look in his eyes.

He does find the Syrenet suits quite cool; the visors are the neatest aspect to them. Something warm flutters in his heart at noting how the suits themselves are designed towards the wearer. Marth's visor is a crisscross between turquoise and cerulean, while Ike's is a deeper blue, almost violet color. Roy's is naturally the color of his hair, glistening like fresh bronze or rust. Shulk's is the color of fresh sunlight rays, which highlights his eyes quite nicely. Mac notes that Shulk's disposition has been generally happier since whatever transpired this morning, and it's a welcoming change. He's sick of the constant brooding of the entire bunch - of which he adds a bit, Mac will admit - and the constant depressive feel the looms over the gang. Maybe today will prove to be a different spin on an old and tried truth.

Buzzing floats around Mac's head, and he absentmindedly swats his hand at the disturbance.

"No!" Pit cries suddenly, from his perch over by the far side of the porch. "Don't!"

Ah, that's right. Mac remembers - this'll take some getting used to, he figures - that Corrin gives special permission for the Automatic Army drones that the technician and vice president made to be used as the eyes in the sky. It's Pit's job for the entire announcement and press conference, that his children will take flight and observe the world from above. An AI Unit could be a good source of intel, but Corrin's paranoia causes her to take triple precautionary measures to ensure this goes off without a hitch.

"Sorry!" Mac calls back, glad he didn't go in a wide arc with his hand, otherwise it'd be red and swollen from having smacked the machine dead-on.

"Anything suspicious yet?" Ike asks, peering over Pit's shoulder, a complicated wireless computer set constructed a few hours before that grants him a constant view of the town square.

"Nothing yet, but who knows," Pit replies cheerfully, shrugging his shoulders. "I mean, I _hope_ nothing happens."

Mac agrees whole heartedly with that statement. He wants to go home. He misses D.C. He never thought he'd be saying that, but it's true. Something about the familiar walls of the White House, or the familiar monuments that loom over Pennsylvania Avenue screams comfort and warmth, something he's noticed that is lacking in the stalwart city of Chicago. An uneasy air filters over him, as if they're not wanted, but he cannot pinpoint a reason why. From all of Corrin's talk, it is all good things be given to cities in states that need a little bolster. It's like a subsidy for a corporation, except that this subsidy is larger than anything else ever given to the populace; a grant doesn't cut it either.

He stands a little off from everyone, as the five Syrenet men are involved in a conversation about something technological that he is uninterested to listen to. Mainly it is Roy's concerns on not having an AI Unit inside his own head, but the secret service agent tunes that out purely because he hates listening to the redhead's voice. It isn't necessarily nasally or harsh on the ears, but his skin crawls whenever the recruit opens his mouth to speak. Mac knows that Midna spent last evening up on the roof with Roy. Why? He has no idea. Part of him wants to not care, to simply brush it off and view it as nothing. However, he's wrapped up in bitterness and scorn. He does not appreciate his heart being toyed with, especially by someone so beautiful as Midna is herself. She likes him, he can clearly tell that, but he is uncertain or not whether she _loves_ him.

His heart has been stamped on too many times for him to be simply turned away by the backslap of a hand.

" _Not today Satan,_ " he thinks to himself. " _Not today_ _._ "

Midna notices that he's being stand-offish and moves over from her position to his side. She mirrors his body language, akin to that of a pouting child with crossed arms and a glum expression. There's silence between them, as the event hasn't started yet, and only a few stragglers are appearing in the square. Robin, Snake, and Corrin are inside in the City Hall building getting microphones situated and a last touchup of makeup.

"Y'know," Midna says to Mac after a few moments of quietness, "You complained to me last night about how no one here feels like your friend. Perhaps if you were to _talk_ to them every once in awhile you'd strike a relationship! Doesn't that sound exciting?"

"I don't need your lectures."

"You're in a foul mood today," she sniffs.

"And right now you aren't making it any better," Mac snaps. He instantly regrets this as Midna's wounded expression hurts him more than any bullet ever will. Her eyebrows furrow together, her eyes soften with the emotion of confusion, and her nose slightly turns upward.

"Sorry," to which her tone sounds like the redhead truly is anything other than sorry, but that does not matter. "I didn't mean to piss in your cornflakes."

"Why were you speaking with Roy last night?" he asks suddenly, turning to her, a ferocious look in his eyes.

Midna looks at her boyfriend quite alarmingly, though the expression is replaced with one more of disbelief. She stutters out a nervous laugh. "Excuse me? You're going to dictate who I can and cannot speak to? You have a loose screw in there?"

"You know Roy is totally smitten with you!"

"Funny," she places a finger up against her chin. "I recall you telling me on the plane ride here that you thought Roy wouldn't go near me for a thousand miles," Midna's smugness falters somewhat. "I was bored and you were asleep. I didn't feel tired, so I went to the roof. He was up there and had some things to get off of his chest. I _like_ to think I'm a good person so I listened to him and let him cry. Is there a problem?"

"You didn't kiss?"

"No, Mac, we did not kiss," she rolls her eyes. "You sound like you're five."

"I've had bad experiences with romance."

"You picked the literally worst gal to have a relationship with, if that's the case," Midna smirks.

Mac's heart skips a beat. He knows she's joking - she has to be joking, there's no way she's actually being serious, because he can tell when she's serious, and this isn't one of those times - but something inside still winces in pain at the revelation. He's hated being the gullible child, when he falls for the dove-eyed look from the girl across the courtyard, but then she proves to only want his money, prestige, or power. Looks are deceiving, and yet Mac has his life run by his heart and not in the other way around.

It's been so long that he's forgotten her name - in actuality, it's only been ten or so years, there's no way she'd be out of his life by then - yet her face remains in his mind like a fresh impacted seal. Glimmering flaxen hair, a beautiful smile with precious diamond eyes, a laugh that'd make the trees melt, and hands that could work the wildest cog yet make any animal come to heel. He's smitten by her, the proclivity from the way she dressed with perhaps a little _bit_ too much cleavage, or the way her hands knew how to lace up Mac's pants... and then he's stabbed in the back, left for dead in a ditch, and wishes that he had filed for a divorce instead.

"She betrayed me," Mac says cryptically.

"Who?"

"My old... flame," he hesitates to find the right word, as it could make the sentence entirely pitiful or a broadening experience depending on how he played his cards.

Midna frowns. "I'm not a bitch," she says with finality. "At least not in that way. If I don't like you, I'll tell you straight to your face. Trust me."

From the time Mac and Midna's conversation began, he doesn't realize that time has wound down and people started to fill the square. Peering over the side of the porch, Mac counts a sizeable crowd of two hundred people at least, and not counting what he can see faraway. Midna vanishes to him, as his heart lumps in his throat. There are simply way too many people. Should something go awry...

He shudders. This is a thought he does not wish to be thinking at a time like this.

The doors to the city hall open up and Mac looks at the opening doors for a quick glance. He gives it no extra thought, until he does, and his head is whipping around to get a full view of Corrin. He'll admit - perhaps he has to loosen a corset before he openly says this to anyone, off the record or not - that when he had been in his youth, Mac does not find the president all that attractive when she began her political career. He does not see why Cloud Gladwell - who, Mac will recognize having been quite the attractive fellow who could snag any female he wished - picks the single nobody from some Western state that Mac forgets because he slept through his United States history class.

Now, however, he happily eats crow. Corrin is dressed in a tasteful, glimmering silver dress. Although the style is somewhat out of place for it being only about midday, it hugs her lithe form quite well. Her silverette hair is drawn back to bring out the appeal of her eyes, with are swathed in a catching blue eye shadow. She's a raging snowstorm, a vicious blizzard that'll take no victims, and Mac is being roped in by strong winds and nail biting cold temperatures. Since he has been part of her entourage for nearly a month now, he has seen the stress lines that coat her face, the furrows that are so deep he could plant seeds in her brow, and the general old look that dampens the glitz and glamour that is President Corrin Etch.

Robin is dressed a little bit more conservative, with a simple outfit picked from her White House wardrobe on daily house calls. Sunflower yellow, slightly floral... the contrast is heavy between the two women, and it is clear who is the superior in this instance. Snake has returned to more stealthy roots, with an outfit similar to Mac's with an earpiece, shades... the whole nine yards.

Corrin walks up to the microphone, looking as if she's been born to the stage.

"Good afternoon Chicago!" she calls out. Mac always found her to be an excellent spokesperson, whether her words were full of fakery or genuinely moving.

Her statement is met with the reward of the cheering crowd. They're starting to pile up, more than five hundred at least with a good four hundred of those people standing up, to where the rest are out on the skirts, the outside looking in through window panes and glassy stares.

Midna exhales a breath next to Mac, one dripping with worry and nervousness. "Here goes nothing..." she whispers, clenching Mac's wrist.

He nods solemnly, focusing on her speech.

"I personally want to say thank you, the city of Chicago, for the warm invite and stay that we have been experiencing here," Corrin begins, hands folded together by the separation of her legs, the president leaning forward and beaming with every word. Light applause floods back in a gratuitous tide. "We are grateful that our stay has been so well received, and that we hope this means there is much more destined to come. Though it perhaps may be redundant, I am Corrin Etch, president of the United States. With me is Robin Wyndel, my vice president," Robin dutifully nods, "and Snake Karlo, the head director of the FBI."

" _Nothing gone wrong yet..."_ Mac thinks, almost smirking. It's been a minute and no one has died yet.

"Also with us is a coalition of members from Syrenet and the FBI to make sure this transition is smooth and as effortless as possible," Corrin grabs the microphone from the stand, starting to walk around the stage provided given the ample room. Mac sees that she's not wearing heels, which is surprising given her getup, but wedges that only raise a little bit off the ground. "For those of you who do not know, Syrenet is a governmental institution that provides accessible and easily affordable technological devices that you generally do not find in stores. Also implemented by the Syrenet bill is that it also acts a militant force used for overt and covert missions abroad and within the country itself. Recently we cracked down on a mob boss and arms dealer in Boston by the name of Link Collins who tried to sell weapons to enemies of this administration. Syrenet effectively dealt and eliminated this threat."

Mac gives a wary glance over at Roy, who seems to not be noticing what's going on; the redhead is turned away and focused on other parts going on around him than the voice of the president in his ears. Midna has told the secret service agent enough about the mission - her word of mouth, the televised news, and what has been written in the papers - to where he knows it did not end well and that Roy, for being the new recruit, harbors some wounds that have healed, and ones that never will even with the most proper treatment.

Corrin's words are met with another thunderous roar of applause, to which she smiles gaily because of it. Mac can tell she is loving it, living in every sound byte and echo of clapped hands.

"What my administration and I are hoping and planning to do is instill a Syrenet branch here locally in Chicago. What that entails is hiring a group of engineers who'd design prototypes of Syrenetic technology, such as mechanical suits for state police forces, or personal Artificial Intelligence units, classified as AI Units, that can be used around the house to make keeping your world running clean. Syrenet's military force is divided into 26 squadrons based on the letters of the alphabet, and one of these squadrons is going to oversee the building of the Syrenet facility and act as its caretakers."

The secret service agent begins to drone out from Corrin's speech, as the president goes into a long drawl about what AI Units can do, which essentially entails any and everything electronic in a home, to driving a car, yet he notices how the price seems to be an evaded topic. For something that is designed and advertised as easily consumer accessible, including a price tag is perhaps a good strategy. He frowns, however, from his staring to notice that there are _way_ too many people crowded into the square. Is it their job to help dispel people to properly view the meeting?

A man in the back of the crowd stumbles into a park bench, and Mac's eyes seize him immediately. Fire burns in his veins, yet, from his trained eye there seems to be nothing dangerous from the man than perhaps a sharp tongue.

"President!" he shouts over Corrin's voice, which is booming through the park because of the microphone.

"Shit..." Ike swears, placing a hand on his gun. "This is not the time to be dealing with this crap..."

To Corrin's chagrin, she continues steamrolling the rest of her speech. "It is adorable to name your AI Unit should you wish it to become part of your family..."

"Your mother is a slut!" the man screams again, and this time Corrin breaks her concentration. Her head wildly searches the crowd, eyes narrowing in akin to a viper's when she spots him. "You screw your vice president because you like her wet vagina! Syrenet is a bunch of bullshit, man!"

The man is obviously drunk.

"I'll be right back..." Ike mutters under his breath, stomping over to the staircase by the side of the porch.

Mac watches the bluenette mesh into the crowd with a few 'excuse me' and 'pardon me sir' thrown in there. Ike grips the drunkard's elbow forcefully, pulling him along away from the congregation, all the while the man shouts obscenities. Corrin's composure wavers slightly, but she is beginning to introduce Robin, who is to detail her Automatic Army that had been brought along for the ride.

The secret service agent's skin begins to crawl. Unless his eyes deceive him, where did all these people come from?

"Midna..." he whispers.

"What?"

"Something's wrong..."

Shouldn't Ike be back yet? The man hadn't been that far away from the crowd for Ike to remove him and walk back and join them. He - Mac - looks over at Pit, the technician's eyes widening at the screen every second.

"Wait a second... what's with all the... dots?" Pit furrows his eyebrows together.

Where the bloody hell is Ike? He should be back by now.

Mac catches something move out of the corner of his eye. The porch that the seven Syrenet members are standing on belongs to a little restaurant-like coffee shop that is closed off to the public for this specific occasion. Inside, there are stairs from the lower floor to walk up to the second floor and out onto the porch through a door. But the door is locked, because it is closed off. Mac is certain that the door is what moved.

He pulls at his collar. There _are_ a lot of people congregated here today. Corrin's voice warps loudly on the wind, matching Robin's, and Mac immediately knows something's wrong.

Mac turns, and freezes.

When did this... man get here?

The man in question is a fellow standing a good six feet tall or so, simply looming over in the back shadow of the closed door, to which Roy, Shulk, Pit, and Marth have paid no mind to as they didn't hear or see the door open and close.

Pit scrambles back from the monitor where his drone is flying, and Mac sees one hovering in the crowd plummet. "Guys! Those dots aren't birds! They're peop-" he whirls around, seeing the stranger in full view too.

The man reaches inside his jacket pocket, pulling out something indiscernible to Mac's eye.

 _A gun._

Currently pointed at Marth's back.

Time slows.

"Marth!" Mac screams, vaulting forward, knocking Midna to the ground, Pit's voice warping into a terrified yell. Shulk and Roy turn, but the bluenette himself is too late to even hear the warning cry.

The stranger fires his gun. A deafening explosion rocks the porch, causing Mac to stumble to one knee. Robin and Corrin's voices both dissipate over the gunshot, the crowd silencing in the matter of seconds. A crag of steel, slate, and fire erupts from the barrel of the gun. There's a blinding flash of light, a peal of silver, and the gun ricochets back. The man's eyes glow in triumph.

Marth's body careens forward, his form arching into a 'c'. He screams a guttural yell, his voice surging with pain and agony. Another burst of sulfur explodes out of the middle of Marth's back, followed by a tide of crimson, white bone, and the snips of flesh.

* * *

The Midwestern rebels are on the group faster than anything Shulk has ever seen in his entire life, and he's seen a many things. One second, the entire meeting is going fine where Corrin is sweet-talking the congregated citizens of Chicago, the moment is being televised, and everyone looks great. A single drunkard stumbles out of line, and yet Shulk is not necessarily alarmed by this proceeding. Things happen all the time like this, it's normal. It's completely fine. Then... Ike vanishes, Pit's voice changes from confused to terrified, Mac screams, Marth screams, and then there's a flurry of confusion and terror.

People seem to pour out of every crevice they can find. Shulk's eyes nearly turn to mud at the sight as rebels - clearly given that they're literally screaming, _The Rebel Cause_ \- leap over the roof of the shop that they're standing reconnaissance for. Pit is scrambling back on all fours, clutching a pistol in his hand, pointing it wildly at anything that moves, has a pulse, or breathes. Roy is focused on dragging Marth has far away from the action as he can, all the while the bluenette is screaming, _screaming_ in pain that he can no longer feel the lower half of his body, and oh where is his _gun?_ Mac decides to drop the gun and use his fists instead, going full swing boxer on anyone who dares get close to him, Midna, or the rest of the gang.

Shulk watches Midna race forward, seeming to eye one person out of the crowd. The redhead tackles into a woman with electric blonde hair, almost as blonde as the Alpha commander's hair, and she goes away, trying to hail a punch left and right.

"Protect Corrin!" Shulk screams out to any member who can hear him. "Protect Marth! And please, do not _fucking_ die!" He slaps the side of his visor, the glass sliding down, and Lucas's AI Unit boots up.

 _ _"Something wrong?"__

 _ _"Everything's wrong! We're under attack! Scan for the fifty closest life forms and what weapons they may have on them. I'll need a rocket or two."__

Shulk's fist connects with the side of a rebel's jaw, hearing a satisfying crunch as he wallops the man into next week. Midna is up on her feet, dancing around the blonde woman, exchanging blows. Roy is on one knee, protecting Marth and Pit both with his rifle. Shulk brings his foot down on the current rebel's face, the man's breath expelling with one final push as he's knocked unconsciousness.

Removing a gun from the waistband of his pants, he fires off a bullet into one man's throat, the person having try to run up behind Mac.

" _Missiles ready,"_ _Lucas announces._

 _"Good."_

A cannon builds itself from the left wrist of Shulk's Syrenet suit. He tosses a glance behind him, seeing that for now the blonde woman had retreated, and among her many of the woman's forces; the porch is clear for now. There is absolute chaos down below in the square. Ike is surrounded in a sea of rebel camo green and Chicago city police blue. Shulk locks and loads a rocket, taking aim for a patch a few hundred yards away from the commander.

" _Fire." he commands._

The rocket expels from the launcher, soaring and screaming into the azure sky. It hails down like a hornet, embedding into the emerald green lawn before exploding in a flurry of dirt, dust, flesh, blood, sulfur, and smoke. The sounds of the dying fill his ears, causing Shulk to wince. The cannon breaks down into the suit, and he leaps off the porch, diving onto a rebel trying to stab a police officer in the back.

"Give me cover!" he shouts at the officer, holding his pistol out. He ducks his head low, sprinting along the grass of the park. He fires off a clip into one man who seemed to have dirt filling his brain. Shulk realizes that the person charging him is wearing a bulletproof vest, and it takes an entire round to down the man for the count. Looking back, Mac, Midna, and Roy jump down from the porch to join the fray. Shulk scans the park wildly, saddened to see that Snake is not among the fighters trying to expel the rebel force back. His concern is with the president and vice president, who are prime top priority, but once they're safe and secure, they're going to need him.

Shulk sees one rebel fighter get down on knee, hoisting a piece of heavy equipment on his shoulder.

"RPG! Get down!" Shulk screams.

The missile fires, tagging onto an unlucky officer that does not hear his warning in time. The officer goes careening before the RPG explodes, a supernova of fire roaring through several rows of fighters, rebels and Chicago policemen roasted alive in the inferno. Shulk is partially stunned, recovering to slam his fist upwards into the nose of a rebel running by.

He loads another clip into his pistol, racing over to Midna, who has barricaded herself behind a few trash cans.

"Where the hell did they come from?" she yells at him, trying to be overheard against the roaring wind, the sound of gun fire, and the pleas of the dying.

"I don't know! We were caught by surprise! It's like the entire Midwest is here!"

"Are Corrin and Robin safe?"

"I don't know!"

"We need to push them back!" Midna takes a shot between the opening in the cans. The barrel of her gun is smoking, and she curses. "Dammit! That was my last bullet." She searches along the ground for any dropped shells, and a bullet embeds in her right shoulder. She gasps in pain, falling back against a park bench. Shulk looks at her, scooting over. The flesh is only slightly touched, but she'll need stitches all the same.

She hisses in pain, looking at the wound in her shoulder with a ferociousness that he's never seen. "Are you okay?" he asks.

"I'm fine," Midna says through gritted teeth.

"You need to get to cover."

"I _am_ fighting," the hisses again, her eyes burning. "I do not quit because of a silly bullet wound!"

Shulk nods at her, giving her his pistol. "Here. Take this, and try to get to Pit and Marth if you can! They're back up on the porch. You need that gun more than I do."

She takes it, and he's wasting no time, pulling out the knife from his left side. He's racing across the lawn, diving into a unsuspecting rebel. Although the man cries mercy, Shulk rips the blade across his exposed neck, getting showered in a cardinal tide. He gets up, stabbing the blade between another rebel's back, slitting their throat all the same. None of these fighters deserve to be left alive if he has anything to say about it. They're disrupting the life and tranquility of an innocent plan, and most importantly, the people of Chicago.

" _Lucas, contact Lyn."_

 _"Why?"_

 _"Just do it! Tell her to tell Ike that Midna needs a medic."_

 _"Now?"_

 _"NOW, Lucas! Now means fucking now!" Shulk roars in his thoughts._

The blonde commander looks over, and his heart wells in his throat. Roy is locked in a frenzied dance of brute strength and agility with a foe at least two times his size. The fighter is dressed all in black, holding a knife that has a blade curved in a sickening 'j' shape. Shulk remembers the man from the first night the Syrenet group arrived in Chicago. _Zant._ Roy is fighting Zant.

The redhead ducks under a swipe of the blade, tucking his head in low and colliding with Zant. The two collapse onto the sidewalk, and Roy lets the man have no mercy, punching and punching until his knuckles go red. Zant, somehow, mayhaps by the unfortunate grace of god, is still fighting. Zant head butts Roy, the redhead crying out in pain, dancing back on his feet. The rebel goes wide with the knife, the blade catching the outer tip of Roy's elbow. He goes down, hissing in pain. Shulk widens his eyes, grabbing at the waistband for something. A grenade. _Anything._ He's not watching his protégé go down, not like this.

As Shulk begins racing forward, Zant advances on Roy, his gaze hungry and murderous. Zant brings the blade down in a shining silver arc, and a cry of desperation bubbles in the blonde's throat. Thinking fast, Roy reaches behind, grabbing a stick. He slams the stick down onto Zant's foot, and Shulk is sure it breaks through the leather of the shoe and into the man's foot. Zant howls in pain, a growl spewing from his lips. Roy uses this to his leverage, reaching up and grabbing the blade out of Zant's hand.

There's no mercy in this fight, as Roy draws the blade fast against Zant's neck, nearly taking the head clean off. The rebel's body falls to the ground, lifeless, with a pool of crimson spilling out around him. The commander and Roy lock eyes, and all Shulk can hear is the roar of blood in his ears, and the sound of Roy's ragged breathing with the rise and fall of his chest.

A little bit away from the Zant and Roy fight, Mac equips a pair of brass knuckles onto his hands, cleanly undercutting a man who slumps against a park bench. Midna stands woozily from her bullet wound, clutching her shoulder that has now stained her shirt a putrid crimson. _There's too much blood. Fiora's blood. Midna's blood. My blood. There is too much blood, she's dying, Midna's dying, I'm dying, we're all dying, that is Fiora's blood on my hands._

Dead bodies litter the ground everywhere, but it seems the rebels have fled now that Zant is dead, and that their blonde haired leader has vanished to lick her wounds.

"Who was the blonde woman?" Shulk asks.

"Her name is Sheik Braring," Midna spits. "She's the leader of the Midwestern rebels."

The grass is stained a foul crimson, and the weak cries of the wounded circle the air. The smell of flesh, and burnt flesh, and smoke, and sulfur, and fire clogs Shulk's nostrils, causing eyes to water.

" _Ambulances are being called," Lucas assures him. "Corrin and Robin are safe with Snake at a second disclosed location. Headquarters is too unsafe."_

Shulk sees Ike from across the park, standing around a ringlet of bodies, and the blonde is unsure whether or not if they are all Ike's kills... or from other means.

"Are- are you okay?" Shulk asks, putting a hand on the bluenette's shoulder.

"I'm- I'm fine..." Ike answers, shrugging off the hand. He looks around the park, his eyes searching, his face creased in worry. As if he's concerned about something. "Where's Marth?"

Mac rejoins the group, ragged and worse for wear, but breathing. "Guys..." he exhales breathlessly.

The conjoined team of Shulk, Roy, Midna, Ike, and Mac all look to their left, and time comes to an immediate stand still.

"Marth..." Ike says, but his voice cracks, barely above a whisper.

Pit looks up, his hands bloody, his neck and face bloody, his eyes filled to the brim with tears that are staining his cheeks. His wings are crumpled and torn, a pistol still hung in his pocket, but it looks as if it hadn't been fired. In his arms is Marth, blood caking his face, and all seems to go in slow motion. Marth's hair is dirty, his body limp, and a constant trickling of blood seeping through the technician's hands, which is spilling out of a quarter sized hole in Marth's back.

"Pit..." Shulk takes a step forward, but something holds him at bay.

The angel can barely look up, and his voice rises hardly above even that of a voice crack.

"Marth, I- Shulk I... I think Marth's gone..."

* * *

 **With a raise of hands, who thinks Marth is dead? *raises hand* I was hella pumped, and HELLA nervous putting this out there, because Marth has been through crap, and then... this. I have to say that the section leading up to this big fight has been my favorite part of the chapter, but there is one more moment of this arc left that will dethrone this by a mile, I can already tell. Let's take this one step at a time.**

 **In my planning, I initially hadn't designed Sheik to be this power-hungry, revenge obsessed person with Syrenet, but just someone wanting to fix a wrong into a right. What do you think is the reason behind Sheik's vitriol towards the governmental agency, and a possible reason why she and Amber have a falling out? Her P.O.V is always fun to write, but she is no longer in the rest of this arc and will not be back till Arc 4.**

 **Marth and Mac were not a scene I originally wanted, as it was going to skip straight to Mac's perspective, but I needed to talk about the suits, which we finally see! They're a downgraded version of Iron Man's, and having the Jarvis/Cortana AI Unit inside the person's head helps make that a reality; a portable suit of armor that is easy and comfortable to wear. Like a Snuggie! Mac voices a few good questions, and if you are to follow the rest of his characterization for the arc, you can probably guess the ending of this arc well enough.**

 **That section of the tension rising up in Mac's blood about how something didn't feel right... I will say again, is my favorite part of the entire story hands down. And the fight. My god, the fight. For those who didn't catch on, Marth got shot right in his spinal cord. Midna got shot in the shoulder, Corrin and Robin were ushered to safety, and most importantly, Roy killed Zant! A criticism I got from my original draft is that nothing sets Roy out from the crowd at all, and here he is tackling quite a formidable foe, thinking fast, and winning because of it.**

 **For some speculation, since this was the climax of the arc, what do you suspect is going to happen for Chapters 29 and 30? I'm interested in hearing what you have to say, because if you know me, something worse is on the horizon, and it's something dreadful. Thank you for reading. Please review and let me know what you thought! This is now the longest chapter in the story, amen to that. Sometime next week I'll probably begin editing and finalizing Chapter #27: Pit's Initiation. I love you all. Have an amazing day! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	27. Chapter 27: Pit's Initiation

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #27: Pit's Initiation. It is time, ladies and gents, to finally get back to this piece, because that 11k chapter really sucked a lot of energy out of me, hahaha, and I really needed some time to recover and let other projects also have some precedence, so I appreciate the patience and wait. Too much happened last chapter for a recap, so go reread it if you need a refresher!**

 **bladeweilder05- Though your review is not for this chapter (but 13 rather), I have the need to respond to it here. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. That's all that needs to be said, I feel. If you're in love with it where you are at now, just wait.**

 **Pokemonfan67- Hello there! I hope I get to see you around more with this story! I really love when I get a newfound reader who likes the piece, as I feel its word count turns people away at times (the word count is only going to get larger, after all). Shulk and Fiora's relationship is probably my favorite one of the piece as well, it's just beyond tragic. Sadly, Ness will not come back. I don't resurrect characters. If they die, they die. You keep your eye on Corrin; you'll be surprised what you learn from her.**

 **Guest- It was the longest chapter! And there are going to be ones far longer than this one if you can believe it. Chapter 29 is definitely going be a 12k-15k chapter, I'm telling you upfront. The whole initiation part will make sense, I promise. Super happy to still see you around!**

 **SeththeGreat- Sheik makes something out of nothing, but she's dedicated and charismatic, I'll have to give her that. Thanks for reviewing, and I know your opinions and insights are going to be needed for the chapters to come.**

 **Metroid-Killer- With your opinion on Sheik, you're absolutely right. It isn't that she's necessarily a bad leader, but that her leadership only works with numbers, and since her numbers are scared citizens, they don't or won't have much battle courage once a ringleader i.e Zant goes down fighting. And you think Amber is Midna? Interesting.**

 **Enough small talk, enjoy Chapter #27: Pit's Initiation!**

* * *

It is quiet in the hospital hallway. No one wants to move into the adjacent room, save they start crying, but no one has the audacity to walk away from the situation. All the tears have been shed, and now crumpled tissues lay everywhere on the tiled floors. The halos of the lights above swing, they swing back and forth in a daze, a fiery dance, and the sounds of gunfire share between the group. In a collected assortment of cuts, scrapes, and bruises, the gang of Roy, Mac, Snake, Midna, Shulk, Pit, and Robin sit in silence. Only Corrin and Ike are inside the hospital room with Marth, their conversations flood outside the door, angry yelling coming from behind the barrier, a muffled array of frustrations and confusions.

Midna knows what death is. She's seen it firsthand, she's seen it so up close that the stinking smell of rotten flesh lingers in her head day in and day out, even when the crickets cease to chirp, the odor remains. The copper drips off of her fingertips, pooling down below in basins of ruby red, and the grit of blood never leaves her mouth. The open eyed stares of those she's killed reflect back at her, from mirrors in morticians quarters, at a arm's distance away on the battlefield, and in her arms as she runs as fast as her legs can carry her to an ambulance.

However, she knows that Marth isn't dead. By some sheer amount of luck, the man who fires the bullet into the commander's spine shoots off a few centimeters. It takes a lower chunk of his spinal cord out, but as far as Midna is concerned, it leaves the bluenette paralyzed, but not dead. Any time she looks over at her comrades, it is no surprise that there is no small talk passing between them. What would there be to talk about? Is there anything to talk about? She's not sure about that, and she never really has been one to understand how to follow her gut.

Pit sniffles, wiping his nose. He even took off his wings for the occasion; those fluffy white angelic body decorations stay on the technician's body from several Halloweens ago - which means a good three or four years - and only when death comes knocking at his door does he decide to take it off. Midna knows he blames himself. The Automatic Army drones did not display the blipping dots on the screen until it is too late, like a swarm of ants consuming a cicada, or locusts converging on a single standing rose.

Shulk has his head pressed up against the wall, fiddling with his watch. All the AI suits are back in the headquarters, though the Alpha Commander insists that having them on their bodies would be more useful and logical than leaving them to be stolen by rebel scum. Corrin, in a broken voice that sounds as if the life has been drained from her, replies that the host has been broken, scattered among the Chicago streets and beyond, and that the police force are doing all they can in keeping the area clear.

"How long will that be?" Shulk shouts angrily to the president in the hospital cafeteria earlier that afternoon, his face bright red, eyes aflame with irritation. "How long do we have until this entire city goes crumbling under their wrath? We're not talking about a band of children, Madam President! These are organized, centralized terrorist attacks against our corporation and branch! We cannot stay here."

"Then what do we do?" Corrin hisses back, gripping his elbow. "Abandon Marth to his misery and fate?"

The commander does not have a response back to that; it leaves him shell-shocked, and Midna witnesses it all from behind a column. Corrin storms off and slams the door behind her when she enters Marth's room, dragging Ike in with her, and that's the last anyone has seen of the president since four o'clock that day.

Midna fiddles with a bracelet on her wrist, looking up and catching Mac's eye. She flashes him a quick smile, but his is devoid of any emotion, soulless eyes filled with grimness. That bothers her. She's seen what war has done to her best friends, her squadron mates, her life... but she does not collapse into a pit of wallow and despair on one accidental casualty. She's had enough.

"Guys..." she says, but her voice rises out quite weakly, as no one has spoken for a good forty minutes or so, the group sitting in remorseful silence. "Guys," she tries again, and this time it gets a few heads to rise, mainly Robin and Snake. "We can't just sit here."

"Really?" Shulk crosses his arms, tilting his head to the side, eyes narrowing together, akin to a viper. "What would you have us do, princess?"

That causes Mac to stir somewhat, as he is not going to sit by and let someone insult his girlfriend. And Midna sure as hell is not going to sit there and take it. "That's unnecessary," Midna reprimands, holding a hand up, sitting up straight so her feet are pressed down onto the tile.

"No, it's entirely necessary," he snaps back. "I don't know if you've noticed, Midna, but we're a family here at Syrenet. We care for one another. Marth may not be much to you, for all I know you might find him to be a coward! But he's not like that to us. For me, Snake, Robin, Pit, Corrin, and especially Ike, that injured man in there is our brother, _our kin._ You and your boy toy have only joined the party train, so I'm _so_ sorry that all this moping and doping around is driving you up a wall." He flops weakly back up against the wall, his gaze petulant and furious.

Midna raises an eyebrow in incredulousness, she can scarcely believe what she's hearing right about now. "Mac is _not_ my boy toy!"

"As far as I'm concerned," Shulk says flippantly, "You and him have screwed twice. Once at a dinner party hosted by the president herself, mind you, and secondly, on an airplane in a the bathroom. If I didn't know you any better, it'd seem like you just came along for the free sex with your plaything."

"Hey!" Roy grumbles, sitting up too. "Shulk, she's right. We just can't-"

"Do not start with me, boy," Shulk whirls back around on the redhead, his finger pointing angrily into his chest.

By this point, everyone besides Pit is shouting. Mac stands up hotly, and Snake has to dive himself in between both men before Shulk and Mac were to pummel the crap out of each other in the hospital hallway. Midna is yelling at Robin to get the Alpha Commander to stop, and Roy is pleading for everyone to take a couple Phenobarbitals. Madness consumes the corridor, up until Pit curls in on himself, knees to his chest, and he lets out a bloodcurdling scream.

Everyone ceases immediately, twisting to stare at Pit in horrified objection. The technician lowers his hands from his ears, looking up, like an eight-year-old boy who'd just seen a ghost. He exhales nervously. "I'm sorry..." he whispers. "I just can't stand all the loud noise."

Snake parts his way from in between Shulk and Mac, giving them their space. Both men lock gazes, and through their interaction, a mutual understanding is passed between them. It's not that Midna is not necessarily bothered by what the blonde had said to her, it's that he seems so off the hinge to just utter whatever comes to his mind, which isn't exactly fair to say the least.

Robin sits down next to Pit, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry," she apologizes, and the brunette looks at her with his wide eyed brown stare, wondering what could the vice president possibly be sorry for. "We've been so concerned about Marth that none of us have asked how you were feeling."

Midna's heart sinks. While all the fighting had been happening, and that in itself is a travesty in itself, as the battle that consumes the downtown Chicago area is bloody, grizzly, and inhumane, the worst fighting had been done on that secluded rooftop away from the center of the action. Pit shakily recounts how he drags Marth's screaming body away from the carnage, keeping all of him together in one piece as well as he can try. The technician is still a greenie in the terms of action, only having Ike's few gun lessons and hand-to-hand combat regiments against an opponent who feels like Pit will break if he even blown over by the wind. He's experienced in robotics and coding, not killing, never killing. Midna and the other warriors have been so focused on the physical injuries inflicted on Marth and themselves that their gaze never passes over a step further, a step deeper into the psychological aspect of it all.

Pit looks forward, his eyes set dead ahead on some groove of grit in the wall, grout blending with white, a muted gray, flesh that is rotting away, and the technician trembles under Robin's comforting touch. "Marth's screaming. He won't stop screaming... he won't stop screaming. I am screaming too, with him, but it isn't enough, he won't calm down. He is crying, crying that he can't feel his legs, he can't see, all he tastes is blood and that he wants to go home. I think he was having some form of PTSD, Oklahoma perhaps. I'm trying to grab bits of his spine that are lingering everywhere," he hiccups. "I felt like Jacqueline Kennedy, for heavens sake! Have you ever touched a spine? Any of you?" he looks around, and no one responds, instead deciding to shuffle their feet instead. "It's bumpy and coarse, but all of Marth's are covered in blood. _His_ blood. He won't stop screaming, and by now you guys are nearly done fighting when he falls unconscious. There's so much blood streaming from the hole in his back, I'm trying to stop it, oh my god I tried to stop it but it just kept coming, it just kept coming..." Pit says with finality, and he collapses into sobs.

Robin hugs him tight to her side, and the frail man cries in her arms, shudders and gasps rocking his body as he shakes, and he quivers, and he apologizes. This all could be prevented, Pit whimpers, had his damn inventions worked like he promised. Midna has never felt so much pity in her life than what she experiences in this moment, and everyone huddles around the vice president, placing their hands on Pit's shoulders, comforting him. Shulk's anger residues from his spat with Midna vanish, most likely having felt some sort of reaction like this before.

The group stays like this, but for how long, Midna is unable to tell. They only rouse from their positions, bones now shifting together like rusted clock gears, when the sound of Marth's hospital room door unlocks. Out steps Corrin, arms at her sides, a nervous expression plastered on her face. She is nibbling on her lower lip, an action she does when faced with an uncertain proposal. Ike follows her, but his expression is more grave. Midna understands completely, half from Shulk's words to her earlier, and from before. It is Ike Forgenson, commander of the Charlie Squad, who calms down Marth when he has the panic attack back on the tarmac after the Syrenet group arrived in Chicago. It is Ike Forgenson who gets Marth off of his feet when he's sinking in a pit of depression and fright about the possible return to a commander position, and now it is slightly bitter and terribly ironic to see where Ike's propositions have landed his best friend. His brother in all but blood is now confined to a hospital bed, perhaps never to wake again, or perhaps to never walk again, Midna is unsure.

Corrin stays quiet, not saying anything at the display in front of her. No doubt the president had to have heard their screaming match, Pit's following outburst, and maybe even his monologue, but if she's perturbed by anything, she doesn't show it.

Ike immediately goes to Shulk's side, the only other commander still able and awake in the rest of the mix. Corrin lowers herself onto the opposite bench, face impasse.

"Any news?" Shulk asks, timidly.

Corrin is wearing a scarf around her neck, and she undoes it with a sigh, silent still. "Is Marth going to die?" Roy voices his question next, but it stays unanswered by her lack of response.

"Corrin?" Robin approaches her colleague and superior.

"Why won't she speak?" Snake looks at Ike, half bewildered. "I've never known her to not say anything."

"I'm thinking!" Corrin snaps suddenly, eyes widening in a manic expression.

"About what?"

"Our next move of attack."

"Attack?" Mac's voice is filled with a contemptuous venom, and Midna has never heard him speak in such a vitriolic tone. "One of our commanders, a senior officer, has just been violently injured! Our second city has turned into a complete disaster in one afternoon, and now all of a sudden you want to think of our next attack?"

"I don't have time to stay here and cry. Unlike you all, I'm the president of the United States. I have other matters to focus on and worry about than just the condition of Syrenet, as impossible as that may seem to you all, I know. We need to think ten steps ahead if we want to outlive these rebels that keep targeting us, and I still have no idea why!"

"Can you tell us anything about Marth?" Robin tries again. "That's why we're all here. We're all worried about him."

Corrin closes her eyes, pressing her fingers down on her eyelids as if she's warding off a light that'll rebound away from her. Midna watches as her chest rises and falls with each lapse of breath, a shallow sound of contemplation, a cobra hiding in the grassy plains of Africa waiting to strike. The game has changed, where the hunters have become the hunted, and the mere thought chills Midna's blood to the core.

"Marth will live," the president answers, and a collective sigh of relief passes over them. Shulk is the first to hug Ike, who is already beginning to tear up, and a weak smile passes over the bluenette's face. "He's been slipping in and out of his coma, but the head doctor here is close on having that stabilized to where he'll be awake shortly. The bullet went through one of the lower regions of his spine, taking out about half an inch. Marth will n-" it is as if the words get caught in Corrin's throat, and she makes a face. "Marth won't-" and she stops again.

"Marth won't be, what, Madam President?" Midna leans in forward.

"Marth is paralyzed from the waist down. As far as the doctors can say, he'll never walk again." Corrin stands at that, running a hand through her silver hair. It glitters like the scales of a fish, cascading and beautiful and radiant. A dissenting murmur rises between the group, and Ike's expression falters, although he already knows the information.

Midna is unable to imagine how painful that must be, how awful that must feel. She's a warrior, it is in her blood, suffused since birth, and if she is given the choice of death, or maiming to where she is incapable of ever lifting a hand to defend herself or her country ever again, she'll choose a clean death any day of the week, no questions asked.

Shulk puts two and two together from Corrin's response. "So... if Marth never walks again, he can't lead a Syrenet position can he?" he says. "Considering Syrenet is still standing and we're all still alive after all this is over," he adds cheerfully.

Corrin turns back around to face them, and the look in her eyes resembles finality. "And that is why I'm thinking. Robin, Snake, Ike, and Pit, with me," she orders, and briskly she marches down the corridor to the elevator.

Everyone watches in stunned silence as the president walks away from them, stepping into the slate cube. The four she mentions give each other glances of confusion, before scrambling to follow after her. Midna is slightly jealous that she's not included in this conversation, and looking back at her companions, it's left her alone with Shulk, Roy, and Mac. Great.

Her boyfriend, the one her boyfriend may want to punch in the face, and the one that seems to have an invisible problem with from the get-go.

Wherever Corrin is going with her new retinue, Midna just hopes the silverette queen gets back in time before the men draw their swords and end each other's lives in a bloody war.

* * *

Corrin's retinue convenes down in the hospital cafeteria, where only hours ago Shulk tells the silverette off about her lack of empathy. Pit notes how cold the cafeteria is, despite the rest of the building being quite hot, which is confusing due to all the medication and IV stalks and needles and other somesuch equipment. He, Snake, Robin, and Ike all travel down the elevator to the bottom floor, passing only questions between them. Pit is bothered by it all; he wants a nap, to go into some warm bed and hug the pillows until he falls into a lapse where time and space do not matter, where he challenges the folds of reality, and it then all proves to be a dream.

Pit is exhausted, not by physical exertion, or even his mental anguish felt at the world for placing him in such precarious positions, but moreso at how everyone is constantly looking at him. Why must people be constantly staring at him? What sort of look does he have on his face twenty-four seven to where everyone thinks there's something the matter with him? Pit feels their gazes bear through his skull. Shulk and Ike are supposed to be two of his closest friends, yet they treat him like a puppy that if its kicked will somehow keel over and die by morning. He's stronger than that. Just because he does not act as the first man into the war zone, bullets spraying everywhere, screaming hearty lines of battle courage... it does not make him any less strong than those surrounding him doing the killing. His brain is a weapon that no one utilizes, no one takes it seriously. And look where it's gotten him.

 _Failure. Failures and more failures. That's all this is, good riddance. Your inventions were never meant to work, and you know that. You know that in your heart of hearts, Pit Icarus. All your life you've been building yourself up to being something you're not. A success is not what you are, but a failure._

 _"Shut up!"_ he growls to himself in his head. _"I don't believe you! I'm the one who's made all the Syrenet suits. I'm the one who built those drones, Robin only added the finishing touches!"_

 _And where did those machines and automatons get you, Pit? An early grave. Why do you think Corrin called you down here? She's going to murder you for failing her in the worst way possible. You promised them protection, you promised them their lives, and now you've ruined it all up! Snake is going to hold you down, Robin will give you comforts in your ear, Corrin will give the order, and Ike will fire the gun. Don't you see? This is your summary execution, you piece of sh-_

"Hey Pit," Ike interrupts the train of thought, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay? You stopped and looked locked in your head."

"I'm fine," he lies.

"I'm just making sure," the other man insists, tightening his grip. "I know today has been stressful, and I know we just went through a lot. I of all people should understand that, Pit, okay? For Corrin and Marth's sakes above all else, try and remain strong. Can you do that for me?"

"Yeah. Don't worry about me." Lies come easily to Pit, almost like water off a wing. He feels like he's been telling them since the dawn of time, where even creation hadn't stirred yet, and there is the angel himself, spewing lies. He's not a fighter, that very much is clear. Pit's mind is his asset, and he stops to think about where the voice just came from.

Sure, he's had his boughs of confidence dips here or there like any person, after all he's human and it is an infallible trait for mankind, to doubt every once in awhile. However, this one is different. It is no unknown secret that out of everyone in Syrenet, Pit Icarus is the one deemed as sane. He's not like Marth, Shulk or Ike from where their pasts are fractured, yet whole, but fractured nonetheless. He doesn't have a harassment fear following him around D.C, or a dead wife, or a murder in his adolescent years. His parents are good people, retiring gray haired people living in rural Nebraska, for goodness sake, and nothing ever happens in Nebraska. He's graduated Summa Cum Laude of his high school, in the top four percent of a quite large institution of the surrounding areas. A damn near full ride to MIT that following summer, four years of arduous hard work that puts him on top in the marginal one-tenth of that class, and Pit can safely say he's as normal as normalcy can get.

A voice inside a man's mind is nothing to scoff at, yet nothing to raise an alarm for. However, Pit can tell right away that this is different. It settles over his skin, feeling entirely different, and he doesn't know why. From the little he's read of Freud and other psychologists, oft times the voices inside someone's head is a warped one of their own, mayhaps even their own voice and all they hear is negativity pushed back at them. This one deviates from that path, and it makes the hair on Pit's arms stand up. The voice is colder, darker, and deeper than any inflection Pit could ever try without literally ripping out his trachea, larynx and Adam's apple all in one go, barring the grizzly imagery. It sounds muted, as if it is barred by the underground, and the blackness tires him out, like supernovas going off in his head.

If the voice Pit is hearing inside his head is not his own filling him with seeds of doubt, then whose is it?

The group of four run to catch up to Corrin, who is walking at the brisk speed of light it seems. When they reach the grayscale walls of the cafeteria, which is quite empty as the hours are getting later into the evening, Corrin has already sat down at one of the far tables in the corner. Snake and Robin stop first, glancing at each other with confusion. Pit raises an eyebrow at this sight. Both the FBI director and the vice president have the commander in chief's ear, yet it seems that the silverette queen once again proves to spiral away from the path, building her own out of failed aspirations and wishes that never see the light of day. It is all queer to him.

"I've never known Corrin to be this secretive," Snake muses, but he relents in his misunderstanding, taking the seat centered at the far end of the table once they reach her. Robin dutifully takes her rightful place next to Corrin, leaving the two chairs opposite them to be for Ike and Pit.

Corrin leans back in her chair, tapping her fingers against the metal of the table, and each bang of her fingers causes Pit to wince. They're gun shells, being fired off in the dark of a cavern that has no end, and at the bottom, Pit sees an orange gemstone, a ruby perhaps, and the voice comes to him again.

 _You'll die unless you do something. Don't you want to save your friends?_

 _"Of course I do!"_ Pit snaps. " _Any sane man would. Wouldn't you?"_

 _I'm not entirely man, nor am I entirely sane, my dear Pit Icarus. You'll come to learn that in time. Firstly, President Corrin must be swayed._

 _"Swayed to what?"_

 _You'll see._

"I wish I had paperwork with me for this," Corrin says decisively, again still tapping her fingers on the table.

"Paperwork for what?" Ike voices the question, and his face is a half twist of pleading and fear.

"Can you please stop doing that?" Pit asks, looking up at the president.

"Stop what?"

"The tapping," he says aloud, and then to himself, " _It sounds like gunfire._ "

 _Good. Let it remain a memory of your failures._

 _"You do not control me, whatever you are."_

 _I am your darkness, your worst nightmare, and your undoing all wrapped in one. We'll meet one day, and you'll know that all you've ever done has been for nothing._

Pit wonders if the voice inside his head is some sort of demon, perhaps the voice is taking on Marth's to try and bring the technician lower and lower into the field of doubt that he's in, but that chance is highly unlikely. This is something out of his realm of control, but nonetheless Pit will keep a straight face and head on further into the darkness, alone if he has to.

"Why would we need paperwork?" Snake frowns, leaning in.

Corrin presses the bridge of her nose with her fingers, eyes once again shutting as if she's warding off a light. "It's what I was thinking about earlier. With Marth's abdicated position, we need a new commander to lead Beta Squad."

Ike blinks. "Just like my squad, it's a one-man team. Roy had been the latest addition in months to the group, and you put him in with Shulk who is more than capable of getting himself out of sticky situations."

"What does this have to do with Pit, is my point," the FBI director cuts back in.

Robin locks eyes with Pit, and then, there, the technician knows. An innate feeling that builds from the back of his head and down from his spine, he understands it perfectly. The vice president wilts her hands back and forth, eyes telling, and he reads her like a book. _Can you do it?_ Pit knows he can, he's known for a long time that the leadership of Syrenet needs to be revolutionized and changed every so often.

"I accept," Pit says, interrupting the beginning of what felt like a heated argument between Ike, Snake, and Corrin. His interruption causes the president to place her left hand, which had been clapping down on the table, back at rest.

"You don't even know what I was going to ask you," Corrin says blankly, lips pressed together in a wry frown, and immediately he sees the years of plastic surgery weathering away at her face, a face Pit has always admired, and now, the selfishness seen here can be turned around into selflessness if played correctly.

"You want me to fill Marth's vacant spot because of his injury. You need me to fill in for him, until we can find someone else far more capable than I," Pit answers. "And I accept that challenge."

"No you cannot!" Ike shouts unexpectedly, putting his arm out between the president and the technician, as if to act as the angel's meat shield from the president's vicious blows and tart cuts. "Madam President, you cannot be serious. Pit is hardly trained."

"And is that your fault or his?" Corrin turns her lip up into a smirk. "Last I checked, you were the one supervising his training. Either he's come along to some degree, or you've left him flailing like a fish out of water. I don't have any other options here, Ike. The other Syrenet team leaders are around the globe on missions that I simply cannot take them away from. I have to tackle this problem of the rebels with the group we have here. Nothing too major, but nothing entirely covert either. Pit will take up Marth's position as commander of Beta Squad."

"I don't think he's ready,. He's the computer nerd, not a fighter!"

Pit is not angry at that remark, as he much rather agrees in full to that statement. However, a bit of his pride stings from the barb, and though Ike means it good intent - he's always meant everything he's ever done in good intent - it is time that the commander takes off the goggles of trying to defend everyone and let them speak for themselves. The technician stills, waiting for the voice in his head to return, but it does not. All he feels is the jagged lines of static, like a television signal disrupted by cloud interference. He sits up a bit straighter in his chair.

"In all due respect, Ike, I thank you for trying to fight for me on my behalf, but I think I can do this."

"He's got the spunk for it, at the very least," Snake comments, leaning back in his chair.

Corrin's gaze hardens, turning very serious. "You have any idea what I'm actually asking you, Pit? Any serious thought?"

He tilts his head like that of a cat's, his diamond eyes flashing in annoyance. "I am sick of being talked to like I am a child, Madam President. Just because I haven't picked up a gun and shot at anyone, in the intent to kill, does not mean I'm not deadly myself, in my own ways," the straight up defiance brings Corrin back some, and her emerald eyes glow, but Pit is not going to let another person of authority try and take away something he's ready for. "I'm ready to do whatever it is I need to do to make sure Syrenet and this branch of government is successful, at whatever the cost. I defended Marth out there in that city, on that wretched battlefield," Pit's words are so superficially charged that spit flies out on the word 'wretched', and it causes Snake to raise an eyebrow at the display of temperance. "Everyone else had been consumed by the adrenaline of fighting back that no one thought to do the right thing, which was save our fallen comrade. I held him, Madam President, as Marth lays there bleeding out, screaming for a pain to end that he cannot even feel, and no one even bothers to ask how I'm doing. No one tried coming after me, thank god, but that did not mean I wasn't ready to defend myself and Marth if it all came down to it in the end. He confided in me about a few personal issues, and now people think that I am too feeble and weak to fill his position? That, just because I have been involved in the sciences and computers all my life that I am incapable of fighting back? I held that man in my arms, Madam President. I held Marth like he was my brother, and no one here will give me any damn piece of gratitude for it! I am going to take up the role of commander of Beta Squad, and I am not doing it for you, Madam President," he leans in over the table, mustering the largest surmountable feeling of courage he's ever tried tackling in his entire life. "I'm doing it for him. I accept."

He finishes the last statement with a heavy sigh, crashing back to his chair. Silence washes over the table, Pit's blood burning under his skin. He isn't mad at anyone - he's not upset with the president, or at Ike, or even with the rebels for that matter - but he's mad at a system, a system that views his weaknesses as disabilities, and his strengths as his stereotypes and personalities. He means everything he says to Corrin in that moment, where his rage comes out in one full tidal wave, from the first denial to the very last, and he's not letting some washed-up group of Midwestern children, which is what this rebel group actually consists of, tell him otherwise.

Corrin locks her jaw, eyes a steely green, but her porcelain lips quip up into a smile. Next to her, Robin's eyes radiate pride.

"Well, I guess there's nothing to else to say. Pit Icarus, I, Corrin Etch, the President of the United States of America, name you to be the commander of Syrenet's Beta Squad, from this day, until your last."

* * *

Shulk turns his head when the sound of the elevator doors opening hits his ears. He watches as Corrin steps out of the elevator first, flanked by Pit, who seems to be standing a lot taller than when he first saw him leave. Snake, Ike, and Robin hang in the back like the kids at the parties that no one ever speaks to because they've been invited out of pity, but his attention is focused on the two people in the foreground leading the charge. The redheaded duo, Mac, and Shulk himself end up not killing each other in the time that has passed, a good twenty minute stasis period of more peace and quiet where Shulk closes his eyes and gets some sleep.

He dreams of Fiora, but this time it is not a nightmare that grants him his time of rest. She is running in an open field, daises and flowers of other various kinds around her growing tall as high as the sun sits in the sky. He is following after her, a sickly sweet smell riding the air, like lavender or honeysuckle or freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. The flowers blur by him like stalks of corn, their petals a plethora of colors of the rainbow: vicious cardinals, stunning blueberry ceruleans, fluorescent halcyons, bursting oranges, radiant amaranthines, and pearly white. Anger, sadness, renewal, the passing of time, royalty, and besmirched innocence. When he manages to catch up to her, now in the middle of a clearing, he sees her now, dressed all in white, like an angel.

Her blonde hair is down past her shoulders, and when she turns to him, Shulk's heart catches in her throat. A lump is forming in her belly, and when she looks at him, her smile has never been happier. Shulk has never seen such an unrelenting feeling of joy, one that catches him in outstretched arms, spinning him so his gaze is up at the sky, while his laugh rebounds against the wind. The warmth on his skin spreads like an infectious disease, but it is a joyous occasion. She's pregnant. His Fiora is pregnant.

He wastes no time kissing her, straight on, and then she presses her head up against his chest.

" _Boy or girl?"_

 _"Does it matter?"_

 _"Of course it doesn't."_

 _"I think it's a girl."_

 _"And what would we name her?"_

 _"Corrin?"_

 _"Oh, god no, that's just plain cruel."_

 _"Promise me..."_

Fiora lifts her head up, and then it seems as if the record player, the imaginary music going on inside Shulk's head - the Nutcracker's Waltz, perhaps - comes to a halt, static blaring, and his wife's expression darkens.

" _What?"_ he asks, unsure.

Fiora grips him tight by the arms. He cries out, saying that he's being hurt, she's hurting him. Oh god the pain hurts, why is she hurting him? Doesn't she see how much she's hurting him, how broken she's turning him into be by existing? " _Promise me Shulk! Promise me Shulk! Promise me! Promise me you won't go! Promise me you'll stay with Corrin and I forever! Promise me Shulk, promise me!"_

She's shaking him, she's shaking him so hard, and all he can do is babble incessantly and incoherently on how much pain he's in, but not because it's a metaphorical pain, but from the one he gets being tossed around like a ragdoll. When he awakes from his twenty minute nap, he's unsure what to call this visitation of his wife in his head. It is the same feel from when he transports himself into Lucas's AI disk, but at the same time, there's no mention of anyone, or rather anything other than Corrin, the name of their undead child.

" _But no,_ " he corrects himself in his thoughts. " _We were going to name our child Delilah, like that one old famous radio song... I told Marth and Ike that at the cabin. Why would..."_

Shulk does not want to ponder on those tribulations any longer. He keeps his arms crossed while Midna and Mac talk softly, occasionally kissing, and the blonde commander sees all of this play out on Roy's face with anger. Although the redhead does not make his expressions known, Shulk sees it reflect in the eyes. The nearly non-existent twitch of the left eyebrow, or the upturning of one side of the mouth into a sneer; it happens so quick he is sure that he is to miss it, but he catches onto it every time. Roy Arcadia is jealous, isn't he?

However, his mind wanders back to Corrin in the 'now' situation, as the president and her entourage returned from their mysterious voyage. Shulk loves his inner monologue's vernacular.

"Where did you go off to this time?" he asks her, his voice sounding as if he had every other intention than truly caring what happened. "A Tiffany's somewhere?"

"The hospital cafeteria," Corrin says back, rather blankly, which causes Shulk to sit up. Normally she deals with a retort of his in a rather sharp manner, pointed and bleak and quite mean, but today. Today she's embracing him, or rather ignoring him altogether, and he's uncertain which is a more nasty fate.

"Why's Pit so confident looking?" Mac asks.

Said man in question stands so he's shoulder to shoulder with the president, a wide grin on his face. "You are now looking at the new commander of the Beta Squad."

Much to Shulk's surprise and amusement, half for Pit's despondence, and the other for its silence, there isn't a loud, raucous cheer of applause or even a congratulatory pat on the back. Pit's revelation comes out, climbs up the hill, and then falls flat.

"How did that come to be?" Shulk furrows his eyebrows together.

"I asked," Corrin shrugs her shoulders. "Rather, I questioned his immediate attitude of getting on-board, and then he yelled at me in front of the entire cafeteria staff and so here he stands."

"And so here I stand," Pit echoes.

"I'm surprised she didn't lop your head off for treason," the Alpha commander comments, standing and stretching his back.

Roy mirrors the blonde's movements, adding a yawn for extra measure. After the slight disturbance passes, he looks back at Marth's closed door. The doctor hadn't told any of them that Marth had woken up, meaning that the commander - er... former commander - is suffering still in his coma, with plagued sounds flashing back in his skull, with nowhere to go, hide or run. "What are we going to do about Marth? What's our next step?"

Shulk frowns as Corrin bites down on her lip, and in tandem, Robin's face pales in concordance. The president steps in between them, passing through both benches laid out on either side of the walkway. She smothers her hands down the front of her coat, fingers wringing away at one of the loops of her scarf. Shulk leans in to her answer; her Spartacus speech is either about to come and hit the gates at full blast, or peter out into nothingness and be lost forever like a phantom's kiss.

"It is clear that the group here cannot contain a rebel force as large as what attacked us today, even in hits and runs."

"A two year-old could figure that out," Midna retorts, and her face goes dark red as Corrin turns to glare at her.

"Thank you for the input Ms. Nye, it was very well appreciated," Corrin hisses. "Regardless of what anyone may think, whether they agree or disagree, I need to make this more of an issue. I very well can't try Syrenet out in the country if our test runs are being bombed to the ground by disapproval and opposition. I can't even fathom why we're meeting resistance when I haven't even had the chance to do anything with the program except make prototypes and items to sell!" To prove her point, Corrin waves her arms around in the air like an enraged bat. Shulk titters a laugh at the idea of watching the silverette transform into one of those winged beasts. "So, between Robin and myself, we've come up with a plan. It'd take too long to try and get the entirety of Syrenet together, and it is futile to return back to D.C lest we look like cowards. I can't call on another country elsewhere in the world to ride to our aid, and I still am uncertain if the use of the national military is warrant enough for something like this. It's been two attacks, isolated or conjoined, that we do not know, against a branch of government still trying to get its feet off the ground. We need allies, and I know exactly where we need to look."

"But who?" Shulk voices out the question, which is surely racing through everyone's mind.

Corrin's smile is a cruel one, but it isn't cruel in terms of her being malicious. "You already know, Mr. Roberts."

A sickening feeling rises in his stomach, twisting and stabbing like a knife plunged into his guts. Bile threatens to appear in his throat, and Shulk is not going to replicate another evening of that at the mansion dinner party, where he embarrasses himself in front of countless government officials and executives and dignitaries. It is all flooding back to him now; the rainy day when the message is given to him. Her hair running through his fingers, soft as cotton, bright as flaxen, yet brittle and crumbling underneath his gentle touch like ash. Carcasses pilling on the sides of the roads, copper continuously streaming from the bodies. War shells hitting apartments, knocking entire infrastructures to the ground. In his head over and over again plays her words.

 _"Promise me Shulk, promise you won't return there. He's watching me, he's always watching me. Watching me. Watching you. Watching the baby!"_

 _"But who? Who, Fiora? How am I able to look out for an enemy if you won't tell me what he looks like?"_

 _"You know. You already know, Shulk! Tell me you know who I'm talking about. They're in it together, I know they are. Trying to tear us apart, trying to rip Corrin from me."_

 _"Our daughter's name is not Corrin, Fiora!"_

Shulk feels dizzy, but he remains upright, and he bucks his chin up.

"No," he states.

Corrin's jaw locks again, and this time her eyes show no mercy. This isn't Marth denying the role as leader for the Chicago mission, which has turned out to be a complete and total disaster. It is not Pit taking a stand for what he believes in. This is her most trusted colleague and affiliate spitting on her words like lickspittle, stomping it with his booted heel, and using Cloud's grave to hide the damage.

"No?" Corrin repeats. "I don't think I asked you a question."

"Last time Syrenet went there, we were massacred. Last time we went there, Syrenet didn't even get off the ground. Last time we went there, we lost a city from a state from our country." he gets right into Corrin's face, second time in one afternoon as he is testing his luck. "Last time someone from my family went to Detroit, I lost my _fucking_ wife, Corrin! I lost Fiora because you sent her to Detroit to deal with the rebellion, and they seceded from the Union anyways! I'm not going!"

"You are going, and that's final!"

"Over my dead body."

"We need them," Corrin argues, grabbing Shulk by the wrist. "We make an alliance with the nation-state of Detroit. In exchange for their military, which we use to light the rebel bastards up and destroy them all, I recognize them as a country, establishing trade lines and routes. In order to have the rebels come back out of their hiding holes, we establish a Syrenet branch in the city. All we have to do is talk to the Council of Thirteen the presides over the city; should they refuse, we bully them into submission anyways. We need to do this, Shulk. For Syrenet's survival."

Shulk shakes his head. "I trusted you, Madam President. I trusted you and have followed you this far for you to crap all over my wife's grave. Do my feelings mean nothing to you?"

"They mean the world to me," Corrin insists, but the blonde is holding back the urge to laugh in her face. Fiora's face blends with the president's and for a moment he stumbles over his next statement, but she's not finished - Corrin, not Fiora - "but this is a decision I had to make on my own. You are a part of Syrenet, whether you want to be or not. Your fates are conjoined. You're my leading officer."

"What are we going to do about Marth?"

"Once he wakes, he'll be shipped back to D.C for recovery. When this rebellion has been quashed, and once we return back home, then everything will return back to normal."

"Normal?" Shulk lowers his voice. "Normalcy? Normalcy would be my wife still alive, Madam President. Normalcy is the child that she was pregnant with being three years old by now, and I at home to take care of her. Normalcy is you not putting your administration first over us. You did it once before, and I am not letting you do it again."

Corrin has the audacity to laugh in his face, and Shulk's own twists into that of fury and rage. "Everything I do is for the good of this country and for the good of all of our sakes. I can't reverse what happened to your wife, Shulk. I'm terribly sorry about your wife, and I will make sure that while we are there, you find justice for Fiora's killers. The Council of Thirteen can help us in that endeavor. Like you said, I've led you this far. I need you to follow me one last time." Despite her laugh, the silverette presses a hand up against Shulk's cheek.

The entire world evaporates, and although there is Pit, Robin, Snake and others standing behind him, they all melt away and mesh into Corrin. Her hand is comforting, her hand is guiding, and her hand is the solace he needs. The anger in his veins cools, it slows to a trickle, and his breathing becomes ragged. He's never thought about it before, that the pain that builds in his chest is not just because of his wife's death, but also because there's never been closure. Yes, he knows that she's buried somewhere on a hill in a cemetery that faces the sun and the sea, but he's never found out who murdered his wife in cold blood. Corrin Etch is the woman who says that if something is done, it'll be done. By the snap of her fingers, it will be done. Shulk's anger recedes back into bloodstream, and his gaze softens.

" _Promise me, Shulk. Promise me. Promise me you'll stay away from him."_

 _"I don't even know who 'he' is, Fiora. How can I help you when you won't help me?"_

 _"Corrin is the way. Trust her."_

Corrin's hand presses into his face again, registering her presence. "One more time, Shulk, please?" she is not the same president from two minutes ago. She has broken down all the walls, all the barriers, and she's pleading. "Trust my plan, one more time Shulk? If you follow us to Detroit, to help us rid these rebels, I will do everything, _everything_ in my power to help you find Fiora's killers. Do you still want to break that glass ceiling?"

Shulk remembers the conversation the two of them had, ever so long ago back in Corrin's office. "We will break that glass ceiling, Madam President."

" _Promise me, Shulk. Promise me you'll save me. Promise me you'll rescue me."_

 _"I promise, Fiora. I'll avenge you. I love you."_

Corrin removes her hand from his face, leaning upwards to kiss him on the forehead. One second she's there, the next she's gone, and Shulk stands between both hospital benches, his head throbbing, and the promise unspoken on the wind. He smiles warmly at Snake placing a hand on his back, pressing him to his side.

On the wind, following Pit's Initiation, a voice whispers.

 _Promise me, Shulk._

 _Promise me._

 _Stay away from Detroit._

* * *

 **Hot damn! There we are ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #27: Pit's Initiation. It has been a long time since I've written a chapter, and here I am in one sitting writing out a 9.2k chapter. And oh my god, can you guys believe it? Syrenet has breached 200k word count, this story is my longest piece I've ever written and I feel like crying. I actually feel like crying, oh my god.**

 **So, a lot has happened in this chapter. Midna understands a little bit more of the Syrenet family, and while I think her relationship with everyone besides Roy and Mac is lukewarm at best, it is still interesting nonetheless. Pit has been on the wayside fringes for awhile, but with Marth's unfortunate vacancy - he's not dead _yet,_ ladies and gents - our technician is to step into the fold. But, what matters most of all, is that Shulk is breaking the promise he made to Fiora, not even one day later, but it is for the greater good. Arc 4, the final arc, Chapters 31-40, center around Detroit, and the ending of Syrenet. So much is to come.**

 **Please review! I'd love to know what you thought of this chapter! I am happy to be posting this a day early, and Woohoo for 200k! I can't wait to post Chapter #28: Political Poker Policies, which is going to be a fun one to write, I can tell you that. I love you all so much! Have an amazing day! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	28. Chapter 28: Political Poker Policies

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #28: Political Poker Policies. Last chapter, Pit has been picked - well,** ** _volunteered -_** **to become the next commander of the Beta Squad in Syrenet due to Marth's injury, and Corrin has made the executive decision to have the team go and seek out the Council of Thirteen in Detroit, where Shulk and Syrenet has already had some past. The next two chapters, so this one and 29 are going to be focused entirely on Corrin, Snake, Robin, and Mac, as they haven't had a lot of time to shine this arc whereas Midna and Roy, the former especially has catapulted up to the forefront. Review replies!**

 **SeththeGreat- I was worried about not having Marth killed as it was this huge cliffhanger, but you assured my thoughts. As you are fully aware, none of the characters here have amazing mental stability, which I suppose reflects myself at times, but this is definitely extreme, however the situation they're all in is quite extreme. And interesting you say Roy is jealous, I haven't actually been writing that as the angle - trying to work out this relationship is quite difficult, it's been a mess - but good on you for that. Corrin and Shulk are my favorite two characters in the story, so naturally, I love their relationship.**

 **Guest- Quite a short review from you, but happy to see you're still here! I still actually find the Claus chapter one of the weaker ones in the story, and last chapter I felt was weak too, man, we are totally different on thoughts! Thanks for the congratulations, my hard work is starting to actually mean something I think.**

 **CrashGuy01- Hey, you reviewed! Man, I've missed your thoughts and inputs. And gah, I hate to tell you, but no, that voice is not Fiora. If there's anything that isn't ambiguous in this story, it's her fate. She's dead as a doornail.**

 **Mr. Squirtle6- You know I never relent on the gas, lol. You** ** _cried?_** **Man,** ** _that's_** **intense, gee I didn't think anyone would cry! I suppose I say thank you? And man, your favorite chapter on the entire site? There's a lot on this website, and for you to say that, I** ** _may_** **start crying, my god man thank you. Arc 4 is going to devastate me, let alone the readers.**

 **Metroid-Killer- Man, two for two on the emotional thing! And your favorite as well? Huh, I suppose I'm not seeing something. Corrin may be my favorite character in existence, and I don't mind saying that. Pit is one of those characters who thinks he can actually do something and when he gets there... well... And no, I didn't answer your Amber question because it's a secret. Let your mind think whatever you want.**

 **Enjoy Chapter #28: Political Poker Policies, which is going to be styled the same way Damaged Dinner was.**

* * *

"You're drunk," Snake says sardonically, arms crossed over his chest as he's hanging out underneath a glowing neon sign, face shadowed in 70's fluorescent purples and pinks, the other an umbra of the moon. Behind him, Robin and Mac remain silent as the FBI director's figure is quite literally blocking the door.

"Wow, your observational skills are _amazing,_ Mr. Karlo! How long were you in school to tell me that?" slurs Corrin, the silverette currently holding onto one beer bottle and a cigarette in the other.

"You smoke?" Robin pushes Snake out the way, a look of displeasure crossing her face. The whole day has been a mess in her mind. Marth wounded, half the Syrenet crew suffering from PTSD, Corrin drinking her sorrows away, and all Robin can give is a gentle hand. She's never felt more useless in her entire life and it's starting to sicken her.

"No," Corrin retorts. "I don't."

"Then what is..." Mac furrows his eyebrows together.

"Do you do anything other than complain about other people?"

"I beg your pardon Madam President, I-" Mac blinks.

Corrin waves his words away with a dismissive hand, guzzling a long sip from the beer bottle. A pool stick is clutched in her other occupied hand, her face flushing with sweat. Beads roll off of her forehead onto the carpeted floor of the motel, an ugly darkening olive green pattern with what looks blood stains. At least, to Snake that's what they resemble.

It's proven by the afternoon's proceedings that taking a plane to Detroit's airport is not safe, as it seems the rebels know of their plans before Syrenet knows _their_ own. Corrin demands that the compound be packed up, a few shoddy cars are bought from an underhanded dealership and then the crew goes on the road. They're halfway to their destination of Detroit, Michigan, cooped up somewhere on the fringes of Illinois, eleven people in a motel where the sweat smell is abounding, the snoring is louder than the usual thunderstorms, and tensions are high. Marth is flown by helicopter to one of the hospitals in Detroit, and Ike is gone ahead with his best friend to make sure the trip is a success. Corrin's phone rings at around nine that evening as Ike tells the gang that their injured soldier is put back into medical care.

With Roy napping, Midna out firing weapons in the motel's strange addition of a shooting range, and Pit going to look over the technological failures of the Automatic Army, it leaves Corrin wanting something more than being cooped up in her room and reading. She has no idea how he does it, Shulk that is, where the blonde can sit up against a wall, open up a novel, and read. It _is_ what the Alpha Commander says he'll do, clutching a bottle of tequila close to his chest. The man will sit in his room in solidarity, turn on Lucas's AI disk, and chat about god knows what. Doing some perusing, Corrin decides that there's nothing on the TV - soap operas are a bore, she dislikes action and superhero movies with a passion, and she's not in the mood to watch The Notebook on reruns - and goes to the motel's local bar. Things are different in Illinois, she presumes.

Though sleeping in rat infested homes is not high on the bucket list of President Corrin Etch, she decides it's for the best. There's so many more lives at stake now, and it'd be impossible for any Midwestern rebel scum to track them to some hick housing. Halfway through her third beer, Corrin laments going to take a nap on the billiard table when an idea hits her brain. She dials Robin's number, tells her to demand her, Snake, and Mac's presence in the bar or face a pink slip when the entire ordeal is over. She's got some fun up her sleeve.

"Grab a stick," she says to Snake, nodding at the rack over by the corner. The positioning of the balls on the pool table are already in place, and Corrin has the cue ball set up perfectly. All that the game is needs is participants and she's against playing games by herself. She's the president of the United States of America; a title like that demands company.

Snake sighs, scratching at his brow. He walks over and grabs the largest one, hefting it in his hand as if it were a rifle. Robin shakes her head in dissent, a tight frown forming on her face.

"I shouldn't," Robin says.

"What do you mean?" Corrin narrows her gaze. "Grab a pool stick."

"Last time I've played a pool stick was in college and I don't want to relieve that experience."

Corrin marches right up to the vice president, grabbing her by the collar of her buttoned up dress-shirt. The smell of alcohol is heavy on her breath, and Robin's eyes go wide as saucers. "Grab a pool stick or I'll find a new vice president on the morrow."

Robin does dutifully as she's told, hoping to drown out the smell of Jack Daniels and Coolers' Light with the smell of sulfur, smoke, and ash. Corrin turns her head to look at Mac, but before she even gets a word in, the secret service agent is already grabbing the chalk cube and dousing the white tip in blue powder. The president's heart elates; she can't scarcely believe it, they listened to her! She's wondered for hours on end why it seems like no one in her group is following her orders without question. It's always someone talking back to her or saying 'no', even when it is as harmless as playing pool! She thought about poker, but that involves gambling, and there's a few Benjamin Franklins she is unable to afford to lose. A few is putting it quite mildly, but what her administration doesn't know won't hurt them.

"Mac gets first shot."

That piques the secret service agent's eyebrows up, but he nods, sighing. He goes over to the front of the pool table, eyeing the cue ball, guising his angle. Corrin watches his lips move, as if he's speaking to himself on where he thinks each ball will go, and she decides that if her hired muscle does not take a shot in the next five milliseconds, she's chucking the pool stick through his trachea.

He lines up the stick, moves it back with his right hand, and glides it forward. _CRACK!_ The cue ball slams into the '1' and the balls disperse. It is a rainbow gliding over emerald leather, and into the leftmost upward pocket falls the nine ball. "Got one!" he exclaims.

"Yes, we all saw," Corrin says, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "What do you want? A medal?"

Snake clears his throat up from where he's sitting, leaning up against the bar stool over in the corner. "Nice job, Mac. How about I get 1-4, Robin gets 5-8, Mac gets 9-12, and Corrin, you take 13-16."

"But I want 1-4! I'm the most important one after all!" Corrin stomps her foot childishly, sloshing beer from the bottle. She grabs the cigarette from the ashtray, taking another long puff, coughing her lungs up with black tar. She hates smoking. Damn Link Collins and his idiosyncrasies. _Great, a drunk politician. You should smoke, it helps keep the knife steady, Madam President. I loathe you and everything that you resemble._

Snake locks his jaw. "Well, I suppose that you can have the numbers one through four, Corrin,"

"That's what I thought!"

The pool room / bar is empty except for the four of them and the bartender. Mac eyes him over in the corner, and the two lock eyes. He averts his gaze, as the bartender's left is covered up by an eye patch, and on his right eye, a white rippling scar goes down from forehead to right nostril. The other bar stools and tables are quiet, napkin dispensers empty with pallid sheets of paper spilling onto the carpeted floors that reek of bronchitis coughs and mucus and smoke and sulfur. Mac is trying his best not to puke. The din sound of a swinging ceiling fan drowns out all other thought, the perpetrator hanging over the bar as the chain dances. A chain dances, a song plays over the loudspeaker, something by an artist named Dolly Parton, and Mac is beginning to feel strangely lightheaded.

"Your turn Robin," Snake finishes his shot, the cue ball falling into the hole. "Damn scratch..."

The vice president leeches herself off the wall, where she swears it is sticking to her back as if it is an eon of dried gum plastered everywhere. Corrin lowers the beer she had been taking a sip from and places it in on the table. She takes a seat while Robin lines up her shot. "Hey, Robin, tell me about the story of you in college."

It causes the woman in question to pause. "What about it?"

"I've never heard it before."

"I'd rather not talk about it-"

"We're all friends here, aren't we?" Corrin's eyes flash dangerously, and she clenches the cigarette between two shaking, pale fingers. She inhales, exhales, and a trail of broken dreams and white smoke follows. In the vapor, the president can see deserted dance halls and smashed records and amber eyes in the fumes. "You tell me this story, I'll tell you a story."

Robin's gaze averts back to the table, lining up her shot, smacking the cue ball. The '5' smacks against one of the corners, falling into one of the middle holes. She rights herself, face mirroring pride. She may be the least useful person in the Syrenet group - at least in her mind she finds herself rather unspectacular - but she plays a mean game of pool. Then, to Corrin, "If I'm going to tell you this story, _I'm_ going need a drink. Can you do gin and tonic?" she shouts at the bartender. The bartender nods dutifully, going to make the drink of the maiden's choice. Robin sits down on a stool next to the bar, taking the drink with an heartfelt expression on her face as the grizzly man hands it to her. She sips through the martini straw, delicate and slow like a good old lady of her prestigious name.

Corrin rolls an eye. "I'm waiting, Robin,"

"It's a story that requires a lot of alcohol..." Robin snaps back, and she swirls the glass with her straw. The _dink-ding_ of the ice cubes against the glass rattles on the wall panels, and the sound is louder than she expects, which causes her to stop. "And I don't exaggerate when I say that."

"Oh trust me, you never exaggerate anything," Corrin snorts.

Robin takes another sip, letting out a satisfying gasp. "Man, that hits the spot," and she sets the drink down next to her as the president goes for her shot, misses, and cusses a great deal that'd bother her in any other situation other than a game of billiards. "Anyways, this takes me back to when I was twenty-two, and damn wasn't I gorgeous..."

"She sounds like an entirely different woman, eh?" Mac teases Snake, nudging him in the ribs. Snake smiles, and takes his turn.

"Yeah, yeah..." he says, ignoring the brunette.

"And now, well, look at me," Robin says breathlessly, clutching one of her buttoned up sleeves. "I look like one of those powered women in the eighties and nineties... I mean, women shoulder pads? Who would think of anything that stupid? But I digress..."

"Can you just get to the story?" Corrin whines. "I'm gonna fire you for being boring just as easily as I can for disobedience."

Robin purses her lips. This is the strangest she's ever seen Corrin, and she's seen thousands of nights where the president is in a situation that is certainly not advantageous, but she doesn't like to bring those up either. "I got accepted into Harvard, studied law like everyone else who goes there, and succeeded with being at the top of my class at twenty-five. It's the things I don't discuss about those years at that school that I generally don't talk about," she eyes her glass of gin and tonic as if the story is playing around in the brownish amber liquid. She takes another sip. "As you very well know, I like to pride myself on my Christianity, but I don't really let that interfere with these political policies and whatnot. I agree to have a husband, be a virgin until you're married, and all of that good stuff. Well, you can thank pool."

"Thank pool for what?" Mac leans up against the pool table.

"If you'd stop interrupting her, perhaps she'd be able to get to it," Corrin snaps, her gaze seizing him up as if he is a meal. It seems that the billiards game halts to a stand still as the other three are enraptured in Robin's telling of how pool is a game designed by the devil himself.

The vice president keeps her eyes staring up at the haze of the lights above in the ceiling, for if she is to pass her gaze elsewhere at the occupants in the room, she's afraid that all will be given for her efforts is judgment and disgust. "One of my classes I took my junior year is an advanced level course in Psychology, down the humanities path I had taken. Our teacher, the effortlessly stunning and beautiful Douglas Jay Falcon, in that order entirely, was a man who knew he looked good. Tight-ass jeans that showed his hips and butt... a smile that made Elvis Presley look like child's play, and a voice that makes Morgan Freeman want to find a new job..." Robin presses a hand up against her cheek, expression that of undeniable happiness, and Snake's heart burns slightly.

"It sounds like you may have a had a thing for this Mr. Falcon," Mac notes, chalking up his stick.

"You are at amazing at understanding your surroundings," Corrin says, finishing off the beer bottle. "You were given two ears and one mouth for a reason. Shut up."

Mac's face flushes, and he opens his mouth to retort, but Robin steamrolls over him before any damage can be done. Bottles will not be thrown on a night like tonight, no siree.

"It is known at school that our graduating class had been a little bit too destructive for our own taste... and we _loved_ drinking," Robin snickers to herself, eyebrows furrowing together as if she had a secret she couldn't share. "So, one day, we're all down at one of the bars and hangouts during exam weeks... it must've been finals, and it had been Mr. Falcon's exam we had all taken. Everyone loved him, and I'm a liar if I said I didn't either..." Snake's eyes narrow dangerously together, all to Corrin's bemused face. "We all wanted a piece of that perfect ass, I swear. Mr. Falcon wasn't all that much older than all of us, ten or twelve years I think. So, I'm twenty-two, he's thirty-four and we're all swooning. He comes down to the bar that evening; he was known to join us on nights where we went partying, but would stop once we broke out the weed..."

"It sounds like you haven't always been the angel we thought you were," Snake makes a face, but it is Corrin's glare that silences him once again. For shit's sake, she just wants to hear what happened and it is as if everyone is trying to piss her off again. Back to everyone not following her orders, and it is starting to get on her nerves and really piss her off.

"We decided to turn our game of billiards to a game of strip billiards, if such a thing has even existed," Robin giggles, and her face turns bright pink. "I've never been so stupid in my entire life, but we get Mr. Falcon to play along. All us ladies, and the gay men there loved watching him strip himself out of his jeans and dress shirt... taking off his shoes, a hat... oh his body was luscious..." her voice rises up to new heights, and Robin's eyes display ecstasy.

"She needs another drink," Corrin tells the bartender, who goes to make a second gin and tonic.

"So you all got shit faced drunk playing a game of pool that caused you all to take your clothes off, and the psychology teacher got involved. I fail to see the awful point in all this," Mac frowns, and he resumes to continue playing the game that the others had forgotten entirely about.

Corrin doesn't know how to feel with the statement that comes out of his mouth. "I'm surprised that with you and Midna fucking every chance you get that you are incapable of seeing where this story is going..." and she shakes her head, ignoring Mac's surprised expression. She knows she just swore so liberally, and thing she's trying to get herself away from, but sometimes drastic times calls for drastic measures.

She detaches herself from the conversation as she goes over to grab another drink from the bar, instead opting for a margarita on the rocks, extra salt, and a few more limes than usual.

There's a storm approaching. Thunder bellows out over the White House, high above in the squalls where the gray clouds battle. Jeweled fingers tap against a windowsill, eyes scanning out over a dominion covered in a feeling of solemnness. Queen Corrin of the House Etch, rightful president of the United States of America and the commonwealths of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Guam, only human being of her own kind, and protector of the Constitution - _titles,_ _oh the titles_ \- stands in her room, perched high above the streets of Washington D.C, a god in her own eyes, a god feared by the tiny people down below.

Corrin likes that mental image, and sitting in this dinky bar with all of these depressing folk are not doing her any favors. She's upset that she's actually found herself interested in Robin's nocturnal activities as a youthful young adult who didn't know her right foot from her left. What should be the most important is her! Everyone needs to talk about her. She loves when she's the center of attention; she's craved its approval ever since she discovered what microphones were, public speaking, and the right to privilege. Her father's looming glare is enough for her to decide that she'll be the one to knock down the system and become a ruler of an entire new kingdom forged in fire and battle. No matter how many people she steps on the way up is not her concern, the warning lights are always flashing and people need to be aware when their time is up; people need to know when they're not needed, wanted, or sought after so their end isn't grim with seven bullet wounds in their heart in a dark alley.

Cloud never learns, Corrin laments. She misses him, deep down. She has no idea where's he vanished to, and if he's dead, who did it or why. Part of her wants to believe that he's in Manila on a grand vacation, with shades and his arm linked around some woman who keeps him happy and lets him screw her whenever there's a moment to make love. It hits her in the face like a wet glove that she's unhappy, Corrin is, with her marriage. Cloud Gladwell and Corrin Etch rise themselves on a higher pedestal than everyone else, but she can't admit that she has faults to his face. She can't say without a heavy heart that she loves the blonde senator for everything he's worth and everything he's not. It is like swallowing a vial of poison without an antidote, and she suffers it all until one day someone will press a muted, cold barreled gun to her forehead and demand she share every secret she's ever lied about.

When that day comes, as Corrin can feel it bristling on her skin like an electric current that causes all the hair on her arms to come to a standstill, there'll be the sobbing and gnashing of teeth as the silverette queen who has worked for so much in such a short period of time will watch as green fire consumes it all and she spirals down, _down, down._

As Corrin breaks out of the stupor that is her self thought, she looks over to see Robin completely bright red in the face. "He asks me to go back to his place, and being the drunk silly girl that I am, I agree. And then I did it, lost my virginity, and then Mr. Falcon flunks me because I didn't do the positions 'properly'," Robin accentuates this by making air quotes.

Snake claps the pool table with a hand. "That son of a bitch! The two of you have sex and then he decides to make your life hell because he could? I'd punch him straight in the face!"

"Settle down there tiger," Mac claps the director on the back. "I'm sure Miss Wyndel can survive without you riding to her rescue."

The brunette's face flushes pink, pulling at his collar. Robin downs the rest of her second gin and tonic, and she hops off the barstool.

Corrin rolls her eyes. That's all her entourage seems to do, either act entirely too depressed for their own good or make wise crack jokes at everyone else's expense. That's what she surrounds herself with: jokesters, pranksters, fools and diehard idiots. She snorts into the empty beer bottle as Mac, Snake, and Robin all continue their incessant banter on god knows what. That storm is still approaching, in the back of her mind, honest with rains that will weep over the halls of the souls left behind. No one will hear them, no will hear as her storm lolls over the earth, destroying all in its path.

" _You'll never amount to anything major,_ " her father tells her one evening as he's dying, holding her hand with a wrinkled one, eyes that have lost all of their hope, and her heart sinks when she realizes that her family has never loved her, least not like this.

Her father's words - the ever so mighty powerful man who is the patriarch of the Etch family - ring in her head like the bells rung with a city under siege, a dead king, or a wedding. _I don't mistrust you because you're a woman. I mistrust you because you're not as smart as you think you are. Any presidential candidate who must say 'I am the president' before even winning the election is no true person who deserves to rule._ Corrin's lips turn back into a cruel smile, and she almost wants to laugh at the absurdity of her father's words. He didn't even get to die of old age but of air bubbles in his veins. Where does he lie now? A body sinks into the dirt of one of the cemeteries somewhere up north, a location Corrin forgot, a location Corrin does not care about anymore, or perhaps a location she's _never_ cared about, but it's all water under the bridge. All he is now, that's all he is, all that remains of the fearful, roaring lion that is Corrin Etch's father is ashes, and blood seeping into the soil.

It leaves a nasty taste in her mouth. No parent is supposed to watch their child die. All children have to watch their parents meet their ends, it is something that the pattern of life must follow if sanctity and normalcy is continue. Corrin's mother still draws breath somewhere in a nursing home, but she doesn't visit. She's too busy to actually care, and it's not like her mother ever did. Her brother and sister, siblings of hers that she's forgotten their names of, die in a plane crash over the Atlantic. Corrin mourns their fate, their brother moreso than her sister, and that's all because her sister is a vicious cunt who pulled her hair braids, played with her dolls, and thought she had been so superior to the silverette purely on the principle of age.

"And what remains of us now..." Corrin whispers to herself, digging her nails into her arm, pale flesh welting up red at the drawl of pain. "A crippled mother with amnesia and a woman descending into madness... and despite that I'll keep the name alive. The name will stay alive..." she says over and over again. All that matters is the end is her image, her perfect mental image.

There are people in her life that Corrin has been fond of, but has not ever necessarily liked. Three blondes come to mind; three blonde men who have succeeded in making her life a living hell. Link Collins, Cloud Gladwell, Shulk Roberts... their names linger on her lips like long lasting kisses that taste of wine and strawberries and the spray of summer.

Link's face is twisted in a sadistic, cruel smile, the rivers of dried blood clinging to his face as he spits up poison and wine, still dressed in his beautiful golden red embroidery. His eyes are alit like a fire, burning and consuming, and there's no soul in them. Cloud is next, with strands of hair as gray as the northern snows, and there are drops of blood trickling out with a timed precision. Where did her lovely husband go? Shulk, _oh sweet Shulk,_ is last, and the sight almost makes Corrin vomit on the floors. Her precious baby boy - _he's not my baby boy,_ she tells herself, _he's not my child, but I feel responsible_ \- is a figure with a neck bent far to the right for what is considered normal, eyes wide open, staring at a blue death filled with nothingness, blood lacerating his throat. However, his mouth is open, as if he is in the middle of speaking someone's name, and a chill slides through Corrin's body as she can practically hear the name.

 _Fiora._

It's Fiora, it has to be, Shulk speaks no other name.

" _But what harm could Fiora Roberts' ghost to do us that we haven't already done to each other ten times over?_ " Corrin asks the Alpha commander one evening before all of this Syrenet madness with Roy and Link and Detroit and Chicago and Midwestern rebels began. It is a moment when Shulk is denying his existence on this planet while his wife is buried away in a grave somewhere, six feet deep with sagging skin and eye balls that are shut forever.

" _Everything," Shulk says, hands wringing her neck. "Everything!"_

 _"You trust me?"_

 _"Now and always, Madam President."_

 _"I love you..."_

 _"I've never loved you. I've always hated you," Shulk snarls. "Damn you, Madam President. Why... why must you exist so?"_

 _"Fiora would approve of our relationship."_

 _"You don't know what Fiora would like. And you don't know what I would like either..."_

"Hey, Corrin! You okay?" Snake calls, and Corrin reels back, knocking the beer bottle to the floor.

"Dammit," she hisses, dropping off of her bar stool to clean up the mess.

"Leave it!" Mac says hurriedly, rushing over to her, as the president is down on the carpeted floor that reeks of people from Illinois, reaching for the glass with her bare hands. Red copper stains have always been a pretty accessory, Corrin finds one evening after Cloud slams the front door to the house in anger, and when Shulk does not pick up her phone calls.

"I need to clean this up... I, I can't..." Corrin looks at Mac helplessly, but she backs away, standing up and rubbing her forehead.

Robin has had a third gin and tonic by this point, and she goes over to her comrade, guiding her to a different seat under the light. "Water, please," she instructs. "And I think that's enough for one night, Corrin. You've been drinking like crazy ever since we got here, and I think it's enough now."

Snake brings up another two stools so he and Mac can sit. "Mac ended up winning, though I don't think you actually care about that."

"I just wanted to someone play with me..." Corrin whispers.

"We appreciate that," Robin says soothingly, rubbing her back. "Do you have a headache?"

"I'd imagine I'll have one by morning if I don't have one now," the president gives the ghost of a smile. "Man, how are we supposed to present ourselves to the Council of Thirteen if we can't even have a night to ourselves without endangering each other?"

"We can always turn back and go to D.C," Snake offers gently.

"No," Corrin's throat closes up at that suggestion. "That'd make us look like cowards. It's already being stated on TV that we can't protect Syrenet let alone the entire country. Foreign dignitaries would laugh in my face if we went back with the tails between our legs. That's the problem with this system. I can't nuke the rebels to hell and back because that'd be casualties with civilians and citizens who only asked to be kept out of harm's way."

"Thank you," Robin takes the glass of water, handing it to the president. "Here, drink that," After Corrin takes a hearty sip, the silverette's body visibly relaxes. "So, what did you think of my bar story?"

"I say that you're a whore," Corrin chortles, which Robin actually chuckles at, which is surprising. It must be the inebriating mood she's put them all in.

Mac's face reflects feigned innocence. "Hey! Robin is more than that."

"You need to learn how to take a joke. You're always so tightly wound up."

"Well, as a reminder, since you've calmed down, you've got to upend your part of the deal. I told my pool story, so I need a story from you. A promise is enacted upon, as you very well say."

"Yeah, so stop stealing my punch lines," Corrin quips.

"You've got one for us?" Snake settles on leaning up against the bar, prompting for another beer.

The president sets her glass of water down, searching her head. She's known Robin and Snake for nearly fifteen years, and there's nothing she truly _hasn't_ shared with them. Her deepest, darkest secrets have been spilled over tenfold to her comrade in crime, and the director has just as much dirt on her as the nearest drug kingpin... so what could she say that no one else has ever known before? Shulk isn't with them - she should've invited him, that would've made things ten times easier, she's always relaxed around him - but she's not focused on that. It must be something to do with Cloud.

Thunder rumbles outside, followed by the _pitter pat pitter pat_ of rainfall. It's raining. Corrin decides immediately that Cloud must be gone, he must be dead, and it hasn't truly sunk in until just now. It is as if her husband, the poor old dead Cloud Gladwell - _as if the deer would ever match toe to toe with the viper,_ Corrin smirks to herself - is making his warning call. " _Try and stop me if you can,"_ she thinks, as if the lying, whoring ex-husband can somehow hear her. " _I am the storm, I am the one who brings the fire, the rain, the snow, the storm, I am president and you're nothing but a corpse._ "

She swirls the straw around in her glass of water, staring at the ice cubes. They're so fascinating.

"I don't think anyone knows, _truly_ knows, that I once was a mother."

It is a bombshell. Snake chokes on his drink, coughing and having to turn away his head so he can finish hacking at the ice cube lodged in his throat. Mac raises an eyebrow, mouth parted halfway open, unable to speak. It is Robin, with her frown, and her eyebrows that are burrowed together so deep a garden can be planted within that paints the picture for Corrin. No one is able to predict this, which is perfect, absolutely perfect.

"And when was this...?" Robin places a hand on Corrin's leg.

"Long before I met you." Corrin takes another sip of water, and Snake recovers from his lapse in being able to breathe. "Cloud and I met in college, as you know. Well, I've always wanted children, but as of late, and with my age not being the same beautiful ripe twenty-four anymore, he and I gave up. That is after we're elected as a senator and president, but we did have the possibility of being parents once."

Snake's eyes sadden imperceptibly. "Did you lose the child? Like..." a lump forms in his throat. "Like Fiora?"

"No," Corrin says, melancholy in her voice. "Fortunately. I had her in a usual nine months; a painful nine months, but nine months all the same."

"Is the child dead?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"Not to your knowledge?" Mac's voice is bitter, as if he is looking down on the president with disgust. "How would you not know where your child was?"

Corrin looks at the secret service agent in the face directly, her emerald eyes showing a range of emotion that is all flooding at him in one line, a stream that is unending of conscious thoughts and unconscious actions. "Soon after our child was born, Cloud and I got involved in the political spheres of this world, I met the colleagues I have now, and the child become too much. Neither one of us were able to take care of her."

"Her? You had a girl?" Robin asks.

"Yes. Samantha," and Corrin's voice cracks. "She was beautiful. Dark hair, as my natural roots were brown when I was younger. My green eyes. Her laugh, her laugh was the best sound in the world."

"And where's Samantha now?"

"I said I don't know. Cloud and I put her up for adoption along with a definitely generous sum of money for whomever would wish to pick her up and adopt her. Though Cloud and I technically could've raised her ourselves, we chose not to. Getting a nanny and maids and a service to take care of her would be just as depriving of having parents if we left her alone to just myself and him. With adoption, since she was so young, her new parents could be _her_ parents, _her_ parents would be different from Cloud and I, happily, and then that was that. We checked up on her status a few times early on, but one day I just forgot to ask. I forgot to care. Last time, Samantha was going through this boy phase at ten years-old, constantly getting in trouble and fighting guys who'd make fun of her. She got sick with the chicken pox and I haven't heard anything else nor tried looking it up," Corrin has tears in her eyes by this point, and so does Robin. "What kind of awful person am I for denying this child who's only thing she had ever done in my life was be born?"

"You can't put all of this blame on yourself..." Snake wraps a hand around her side, pulling her tighter to him.

"It's the price for all that's happened to us," Corrin looks down at her hands. "Detroit breaking away from the union. Fiora. Link Collins. Oklahoma City. Roy's injury. Cloud's disappearance. This afternoon... all of it is the price I've been forced to pay because I couldn't love my own child, because I couldn't be a mother to the only offspring I've ever had. I can't even imagine what she looks like. She might be dead, in prison... a drug addict!"

Robin purses her lips, taking Corrin's hand in her own. Mac's broken the floodgates by this point, and he's crying alongside with the two women. "Corrin," the vice president urges, so the silverette viper can look at her closest friend in the eyes. "Your daughter could be entirely normal. She could have a husband, a child, live in some metropolis city with a white picket fence house and commute nine-to-five as some secretary. Or she could be in Hollywood doing movies. Hell, what if she was working for some government agency! Wouldn't that be something?"

Corrin sniffles, wiping at her nose. "I- I suppose it would..."

"Maybe when we have time to settle all of this down, perhaps you could try and find her again?" Snake offers.

"But I wouldn't have time. Reelection is soon and..."

"Sometimes even things like political status need to come second to family, if I may say so, Madam President."

The silverette nods, squeezes her eyes shut, and lets more tears fall from her face. Mac, Snake, and Robin in unison surround her and hug her, arms holding her tight in an embrace. Corrin's body shudders and shakes as she cries, and it is odd that the bartender hasn't spoken a single word, but she's not bothered by that anymore.

She's really glad that she sends the phone call out to Robin on threatening to fire her closest advisors.

She's more glad that they decide to actually show up.

A storm is coming, Corrin can feel it.

Why?

Corrin is the storm everyone should fear.

* * *

Darkness consumes him.

Silence. Quietness. What is this pain? What is this storm that crackles in the sky? Heat lightning is beautiful, he'll give it that, but that's all.

Darkness consumes him; darkness is part of him. It comes from every pore. It unleashes out of every crevice he can find. The sewers are nasty and smell of week old fecal matter, but it is here he calls himself home. It is an awakening spot, a place where the old and useless and unwanted come to die and never see the sun come up.

The Council of Thirteen sits above in their gilded chairs. He hears their conversations go on and on, droning on matters like taxes and financial plans and a desolate military with no one to back them. There's more buzz, that some dignitary, that some silver haired queen is coming with her lords and ladies to partake in ambassadorial discussions. He is unable to hear any more.

The rage he feels causes him to murder a council member in cold blood.

It is an easy task, truth be told. Moving the body so no one can see it, however, is arduous, even for the perfection of a machine that he is. The jewel sees all, the fingers he has on his body burn all, and the man is a living representation of rejected life, a life let to die. Back to the matter on hand, the council member screams and thrashes in the invisible grip. A blackness that comes from the sewers, taking the rat like the scum the member is. Knives. Blades, glistens in the dark. All inconsequential.

It is messy. It is extremely grisly, and he vomits in the back of his throat, swallowing it down as God's perfection does not let idle things such as vomit lead their life. The next day, this man, this specter, this inhabitant of the sewers joins the Council of Thirteen as if he's been there his entire life. Well, he has had a life. Once, he is a human, broken and incomplete, flesh that feels all yet does not understand complexities. A man who only sees a single light at the end of the table for himself and lets everything else fall to the wayside.

Then he meets _her,_ the wicked seraph, a flaming sword guarded by steely diamond eyes. He loves her, he wants her, and he even lusts her in a way that is not explained by usual sexual terms. He is unsure what this person is doing willingly down in his domain, but he relents in his pursuit. A leviathan's jaw has less horsepower than the extension of his reach.

A slit throat. Blood that drips off of gloved fingers, matching the hue of his hair. The whispers against the stone, the sounds of Internet bits and bytes that flood the airspace where hallucinations come and go.

All of this is incapable when he is a human, only stopped by the barrier that God does not want some men to see the grandeur of things in life.

But, when that seraph walks down into the domain of sewage and umbra and callousness, he is elevated. A paragon in his own right, a disposition of glee plastered on his face. This silver maid sounds enough to be rousing for him, a curiosity to see others who call themselves devils and demons and gods in their own right. Only one matches his creator, his seraph, his cherub who guards the gates.

He does not know when his life began, there isn't a date. It is an elixir of life that floods through his blood that is the rousing wake-up-call. It is the iron rod between the cerebral lobes in his brain that make him realize that the world spins counterclockwise because the world itself is an entity that does not follow the rules of time and space. The world is a god in its own right, but he is greater than that of the world.

It is his fourth awakening, and it has been a long time since he's been up and bustling about. Three years is a long time playing in nothing but sewage water. Sewage water, rats, the clomp of pedestrians above, and the dark thoughts circling in his brain.

His interactions with the outside world are brief, miniscule, unrelenting in his approach. There's the blonde. He's forgotten this stranger's name, in a world similar to his own, where there's a seraph standing in the picture. Another encounter in a world doused entirely in white, through the head and eyes of an all seeing Icarus, a man who flies and touches the stars without ever taking off.

A mother. A warm kindred heart is his favorite encounter, with the world exploding in a shower of glass and darkening spots in the sky. Cackling. Vinyl records. Ballet, an opera, the Nutcracker swipes down, the copper flows, and he cheers. The cityscape has changed since he's been human, and the star ways bathe red in blood as he views the world through a kaleidoscopic lens that filters the black and white from color.

The fourth awakening is a hurricane. No one sees it coming, yet no one questions him. Even with the cyber body, even with the lost long riches embroidered elsewhere in his domain, no one questions it.

Does fear inspire the same devotion as love? He is unsure. He's always wondered if that'd ever garner him an answer, but he's been all too entirely unsuccessful in his approach on this matter. It doesn't really bother him, all bow to their rightful lord, god, and devil in the end, as the stars proclaim in heavenly supernovas the coming of his charge.

The monster of Detroit opens his eyes.

The monster of Detroit breathes.

The monster of Detroit awaits.

Syrenet is his elixir.

Syrenet is his freedom.

Syrenet is his enemy.

* * *

 **This is my new favorite chapter, no doubt. _Which_ may get overtaken by the next chapter and a few chapters in Arc 4 that'll blow your socks off. But that was Chapter #28: Political Poker Policies, yet our protagonists did not play poker! How dare I! But, in all regards, Robin has had a shifty time as a young adult, Corrin did indeed have a kid once upon a time, and now there's this elusive monster in Detroit who has been reawakened because of Syrenet... because of course.**

 **Any takers onto whom this elusive person must be? Is Corrin at the end of her wits? Did you have a favorite line of the chapter, as I can pick out plenty, but it is somewhere in this 1k section of the monster.**

 **On the topic of next chapter, next chapter is Chapter #29: Council of Thirteen. It'll be the longest chapter of the story, by far, as it will be a 15k chapter. I'll take about a week and a half to write it (something I've never done before, as this chapter had been written in one sitting - 7PM to 11PM - and it's for a reason). It'll be five 3k sections with Corrin, Robin, Snake, and Mac, the same four of this chapter, and as the title suggests, the Council of Thirteen. Though there will be a couple more really lengthy chapters in Arc 4 to come, none will be as long as the 15k that I'm planning to write. I can't wait to have it out for you to read!**

 **Thank you so much for reading this chapter. Please review, I'd love to know what you thought! I can't wait for you all to read Chapter #29: Council of Thirteen, which I plan to have out before the end of the month somehow, and if not, not later than the first weekend in March. I love you all so much! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	29. Chapter 29: Council of Thirteen

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #29: Council of Thirteen. This is it ladies and gentlemen, the 15k I had been forewarning about and now it is time to have it finally grace your computer and phone screens. I have been looking forward to this chapter the most out of all the ones in Arc 3, and then we're onto Chapter 30, the end of the 3rd leg out of four in this monstrous novel. Last chapter, Corrin had some issues, there used to be a child in her arms, and someone has awoken in the sewers of Detroit... mayhaps a character on a poll we haven't seen? Review replies!**

 **Guest- Even though you now have a name, you're still Guest to me! Perhaps a bit of nostalgia... but I'm glad there are parts of the chapter you liked. I do realize that a lot of the time the characters are brooding or feeling upset about something** ** _or_** **drinking, and we have not seen the end of it, unfortunately. Angst is something I seem to only be able to write and nothing more, but I'm getting better at it, I feel. I appreciate you calling the story 'genius', and I'll agree that this is my magnum opus, but I feel your praise extends its reach.**

 **Metroid-Killer- Yeah... that section with our Detroit sewer-dweller may be my favorite section of anything I've ever written. Since it isn't a point of view, necessarily, it is me just honestly saying whatever I wanted. Your mind is strange... sometimes I think you're hitting the nail on the head and other times not at all. And no, the bartender was not Big Boss. I felt too lazy to actually assign him a character from the roster, because the title, Council of Thirteen, has me allocating thirteen Smashers as characters here. Enjoy the chapter!**

 **Thank you all, my readers, for still bring here after all this time. A word of advice, perhaps would be to read this in increments, since just like Damaged Dinner, Chicago's Greeting, Itching to Play, and Backstabbed in the Back, this chapter is very long, it may be good to read in bits. We've got a long way to go, you guys! Enjoy Chapter #29: Council of Thirteen.**

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The Detroit air is salty. That is Corrin's first impression of the city when she steps off the airliner jet onto the runway at Detroit International Airport, as she lowers her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose and assess the city, and now independent country for the first time in over three years. High rise buildings, like any cityscape, greet her, but there's an air of distinguishable difference to the buildings in Detroit than elsewhere in the United States. As the esteemed - in Corrin's drunk opinion, they're not that esteemed - Council of Thirteen states in their mission statement, ' _To make the country of Detroit the greatest city-state that has ever existed.'_ Because of this missive, the skyscrapers of Detroit are spray-painted platinum, with open wide windows that see over the city, and it disgusts Corrin to the core.

She steps down onto the runway, Robin behind her wake, followed by Mac and Snake. Shulk, Roy, and Midna took the rest of the trip to Detroit by car, Ike and Marth already in one of Detroit's finest hospitals. Corrin is surprised to wake up that morning, with a massive hangover to boot, for a beautiful chrome jet to be 'parked' outside the motel in the parking lot, somehow landing without waking any of the motel's habitants up. The owner of the motel claims that he believes it to be one of the president's fangled sparkling toys, which actually angers her, as she'd lust for a piece of machinery as flawless and exquisite as the one that had flown her and her entourage to Detroit.

Corrin stands on the tarmac, removing her sunglasses from her face, emerald eyes flashing. A limousine is parked on the runway, with a suited chauffer standing patiently and obediently for the passengers to get in. Robin stands profile with the president, arms bundled up by her sides. "Well," Corrin starts first, "Can't believe I actually have forced myself to be back here again."

"It's like you said," the other silverette eases the pain of actually and physically being in a place as despicable as the new country. "We need their army, and they need us to recognize their independence. A two-way street."

Snake and Mac have joined the presidential duo, dressed finely and handsomely. Mac's left hand rests squarely on the butt of his pistol hidden away in his back pocket, the FBI director having opted to place a knife and firearm of his own on the inside of his jacket. Snake squints at the cityscape on the horizon, like a gleam of silver dancing on a sunlit scene. "This place has changed..."

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Corrin asks, her voice bitter. "Only perfumed pounces who think they're something special would actually make their city look like that."

Mac wrinkles his nose. "Perfumed pounces?"

"Don't mind her," Robin advises, coolly. For an odd reason, the secret service agent had been seemingly at odds with the president, though it is no fault of his own. She's an enigmatic creature who needs a leash to remind her where she is and what she may unfortunately do. "She'll have created fifteen new phrases to insult the Council by the end of this meeting. It's her diplomacy tactics."

"And they work _every_ time," the woman in question proclaims with finality.

"No they do not," Snake cuts in, biting on his lower lip. "The last time you insulted an honoree leader, which you claimed to be diplomacy, caused us to have tense relations with _half_ of Latin America."

"Well, perhaps not every time then..." Corrin grumbles.

She's finished with this discussion if all it is going to become is an insult at the way she presides the Oval Office and leads the nation. It is a constant reminder, one that sits like an itch on the small of her back, a place she cannot reach, that this Detroit mess happens under her term. Her first year in office is shrouded in separatist movements left and right, though she is having a hard time fathoming why. Only a few short weeks after Corrin Etch is inaugurated, the city of Detroit, Michigan, declares it to be an independent country. Syrenet, tasting fresh blood, is deployed to make short an end of the situation. A lump forms in Corrin's throat as she walks away from the trio left behind, thinking of those events. It's Fiora's mission, her very last, even when she's nearing the end of her pregnancy - had she been in her last trimester? - that ends up being her demise. Trying to return Detroit to the fold is a disaster with the threat of unleashing nuclear weapons, and Corrin relents, where now a city-state country is on the border between the U.S and Canada. Shulk's wife is gone forever, and Corrin has failed at keeping the union sanctified and together. A Civil War reminder; a remedy she needs.

Her greeting is less than savory to the chauffer, who ushers her into the back of the car. Robin piles in after her, with the boys taking their own respective seats. Corrin puts her shades back on, to obscure and darken the look of the limousine, already dark by the upholstery and leather seats and gloominess that pervades from the moist air hung in the metal, moving prison. Without another word, the limousine pulls away from the runway, the jet takes off again out into the azure sky, and Corrin is willingly stepping into her least favorite place on Earth because she is incapable of dealing with a few misplaced rabid rats.

With the addition of a new country to the world roster, there is the matter of who is to rule the found state of Detroit. Rising from the ashes of the insurgent groups that had formed the coalition to split comes a group of thirteen, thirteen strangers finding commonality in a shared goal; banded together this union is known as the Council of Thirteen, the leaders sworn in for life who are to lead Detroit out of its own created suffering. Corrin hears whispers on the wind that this band of thirteen are people ensnared by the unnatural world, having done freakish things to their bodies like adding animal whiskers or feathers to their body, drowning in a realm of fantasy. Since Corrin's refusal of acknowledging Detroit as its own official country, moreso an extension or territory like Puerto Rico, Guam, or the Virgin Islands, she has never actually met with these self-proclaimed thirteen; freaks are not something she associates her presidency with if she can ever help it.

The limousine is quiet as they travel, which Corrin is appreciative of. There's always something sour to discuss, but more than less she's learning to overcome it than rather wilt to suffer from it. A wound that is ripped open again and again, and Corrin has the gauze ready to stamp out the bleeding before blood loss turns into a loss of life. Noise is always surrounding her, a buzz that never seems to go away, an unrelenting tide of commotion and distraction, where the silverette clamps her hands over her ears, bends down, and screams for silence. At the very least, with her husband's death, there's a modicum of silence in her life now. A gray tombstone helps that measure in immeasurable amounts, she discovers.

Corrin realizes that she's been thinking of him a lot more than usual since his disappearance, Cloud's mysterious case that is. She wonders if she'll ever find out the truth, whether he's actually dead or on a patio in Monte Carlo eating grapes and drinking glasses of Chardon. If he's ever lucky, if Cloud has discovered solace, he'll break open a Cask of Amontillado and choke on the elixir of life that flows from its contents.

She rests her fist against the side of her head, staring out the window. What would he think of her now? It is Cloud's last wish, she hears it against her skull, a reverberating gong forever and ever and ever playing on a loop, that this Syrenet mess does become the end of her. As if he's a prophet who can tell the future, has this become what she's running from? An ironic loop of foreshadowing? Part of Corrin believes her husband would be proud that she hasn't completely collapsed yet. When they had been young and bright, when Corrin's hair hadn't turned completely gray from stress, she would scream and throw fits whenever something political would go south. That had been the way things were meant to be, she's the spoiled princess from the influential family who is meant to succeed at everything. The Syrenet roadblock is a challenge to this, she understands, and it is why the Detroit force is necessary to knock down the barrier of resistance between her and success.

A hand touches her knee, causing Corrin to jerk away from window, having never gotten to think what her husband would be like on the flipside, should Cloud Gladwell not be proud the way events have turned. It's Robin's touch - _of course it is,_ Corrin thinks sardonically, _she's too motherly for her own good_ \- that brings her back to reality, and it is Robin that'll remind her of where she is and why.

"Are you okay?" she asks.

"Of course I am," Corrin scowls, her first knee-jerk response to anything anyone ever asks her. Why is the world so concerned on the emotional state of Corrin Etch?

"You admitted some heavy stuff last night," Robin continues, making a frown. "I've never seen you so vulnerable and-"

"I'm fine," the president cuts her off. It is a decisive motion with her hand, a slice, a swipe, a beheading. "Whenever I start to feel more than that, I'll let you know."

She resumes going back to the window, frustrated with herself. Corrin has no business talking to her closest comrade like she does anymore, but when she thinks about it, she's never had any business ever speaking to Robin in such a sharp tongue. Her best friend has been by her side for years, way too many years to count, hand in hand the silverette queens taking on the United States and world one step at a time. It is Robin that picks up the pieces, the broken pieces, the shattered pieces and messily glues them back together. They may look like a preschooler's sloppily thrown about art project right after a sugar rush from lunch, but it is the thought that counts, and Robin's never abandoned hope; stalwart, strengthening, and although the two have had their intellectual spars and their immature spats, the vice president's stance has been unwavering.

A pang of dread hits the president, causing sweat to bead down her forehead. It's the damn limousine; it must be. Presidents don't sweat out of discontent and discomposure. Another resounding blow to the gut causes Corrin to wince, eyes glued back to the blue sky of Detroit. She can't look at Robin and continue thinking those thoughts, but they continue to hit her one after the other. They dance, like haphazard skeletons barely kept together, under a searchlight, a dance of fear and despair. If Corrin ever had to, _truly_ had to, could she kill her best friend?

Corrin steals a glance back at the other woman, for better or worse. It's Robin's hair color that matches her own, with gentle diamond eyes, and a softness not even replicated by the largest bed of roses. Yet, as the president stares harder, she can see it. She can imagine the scarlet that drips down Robin's perfect, porcelain face. A crater where a bit of her head should be is imploded on the upper right of the woman's skull. Brain bits everywhere, and Corrin can picture herself having been the one swinging the weapon, bringing the blunt object down again and again _and again and again_ onto her skull, laughing, crying, screaming... a picture so gory that Corrin will vomit if she thinks on it one more single moment.

She closes her eyes, pressing her fingers down on her eyelids to ward off light. Light means color. Color means pictures. Pictures means they turn into Robin Wyndel. Robin Wyndel is her vice president, her closest companion, and a person Corrin can see murdering in cold blood if she has to ever overtake those in a rise for power. _"But,"_ Corrin thinks to herself, in the air of the moment, _"If you're already at the top, where else is there to go except down? Her murder would definitely bring that on me, wouldn't it? I'd deserve a fate like that, though..."_

Her mind wanders back to Cloud, too troubled to continue down the thought of who'd be on a potential kill list. Corrin Etch takes pride in saying her mind is like an anomaly, unable to be read precisely, a maze with high rise walls that trap and confuse and terrorize, but beyond that, she's struggling with it all in one. She can picture her husband, with his wave of lemonade hair frowning down upon her. One of their least finery parts of their marriage would be his constant bringing up of Detroit, like a stain she couldn't wash off from a priceless piece of china. She'd cry into the pillows at night while they made love, all because he's a vicious cunt who's only purpose in life is to make fun and harass her. Now, wherever Cloud might be whether it is in a state as a corpse in the ground, or relaxing on some sandy white beach, he'd not approve of this diplomatic mission.

" _A phone call is enough, Corrin," he'd say, swirling a glass of whiskey in his hand._

 _"You must be face to face."_

"You must be face to face..." Corrin whispers to herself, aloud.

"What?" Robin asks, reaching out once more.

Corrin shakes her head, grimacing. "Nothing," she says quickly, shutting her eyes once more, warding off the light. Blood; too much blood. Blood everywhere, blood on her hands, on her hair, on her heart. "I was just speaking to myself. Reassuring myself why we're in this cesspool of a city."

"Careful now," Snake warns, jerking his head in the direction of the driver, who had been separated by a wall of leather. "In case he hears you insulting this place, we may crash and end up all dying. Not something you'd want, I figure."

"Well..." Corrin draws out the word, causing Robin to laugh. It is a noise that brings joy to her heart, hearing a laugh as free and beautiful as that. At one point, the silverette president dreams she's in love with her vice president, a feeling at a distance as she'd never in a million years actually fall in love with a co-worker - Shulk's face flies by her own momentarily, color leaving the silverette's cheeks - so it is nothing but a childish muse pocketed away forever.

The limousine begins to slow down now, and the band of four looks out the windows. The limousine stops in front of a marbled set of stairs, weathered and cracked, looking like rain and snow and fire and sulfur had tainted the ground for a long time. The driver, who must've been acting as their chauffer as well, gets out from his seat and opens Corrin's door for her first. She speaks to him more softly now, which he accepts tenfold.

Corrin shields her eyes as she steps out of the vehicle and into the Detroit sunlight.

There's no turning back.

Time to meet the Council of Thirteen.

* * *

Robin takes in the outside appearance of the Council of Thirteen's headquarters: a massive structure built spherical in shape, glass rings orbiting around the globe. Iron barbs stick out like spider legs around the surrounding topiary, gardens springing up in little pockets hidden behind wrung iron black gates, petals trapped underneath the trample of industry and strength and brutality. The steps up to the structure are cracked, marbled gray and filthy, which is a juxtaposition to the refined building that is the hall. She can practically see Corrin's nostrils flare at the grandeur of the building, as even Syrenet's own headquarters in D.C - although a nerd's paradise - does not compare to the plain ingenuity that is displayed in front of the foursome.

She understands it all in a second. Everything here, the grandeur, is meant to be a disillusionment. You see the beauty, and then that's all you see because one is enchanted. Robin can hear it on the wind, a people crying for help, but all of the money is shoveled into first looks and impressions. A modern-day Omelas, a modern day dystopia, but that may just be the silverette grasping for straws here. The chauffer drives away after Mac and Snake get out of the limousine, and it seems up to whenever Corrin has the initiative to step officially onto the Council's stomping grounds.

Although she has to squint, Robin can see a man waiting - or what appears to be waiting, she is unsure exactly as to what _he's_ doing - at the very top. The set of stairs is not near enough as many as the Capitol building, which Robin tirelessly walks up and down some mornings when bills and missives are being passed and given everywhere like hotcakes, but a height and distance to where she is not able to see a clear picture.

Thus, the climb begins, and up the steps they go. Robin looks back behind her, having the whole open view of the outside to now examine her surroundings. Being packed inside the limousine is cramped and dark, but here she can let herself be swept away by the lies. It is a biased feeling, being in a 'foreign' place that is still actually within their own walls. Almost like a child walking into their parents' room, though forbidden do by some rule, or unspoken law and then given free willy to go and do as they please. The city is definitely impressive, Robin's thoughts were not askew in any slight. The look of the neighborhoods off in the distance are aesthetically pleasing, with parks that are in full bloom: stunning cardinal flowers, luscious violets and cheerful carnation pinks that decorate grayscale sidewalks. Near Model T homes, with the same window structure and ceiling design, and it looks like an ethereal paradise only a select few can get the key to get into.

Elsewhere is a pond, with sailboats and pedestrians, a lush and vibrant place with a sea of emerald green grass. It all smells welcoming, but Robin can take a bet with Snake that there is something sinister. After all, since she's heard the stories, not having been entirely involved with Syrenet back in Corrin's first few weeks of office, that this is the home to nefariousness and debauchery. Shulk lost his wife to this war-torn place, a place that has seemingly resurrected itself back to normalcy and gloriousness and delight. Always a catch, she thinks, there's always a loophole.

By this point, the group has reached the top of the stairs, and Robin can see the gentleman that had been indeed waiting for them. What she sees near causes her heart to stop.

It is as if her heart is an erected statue, made of easily chipped away stone, and someone has taken a mallet and crushed down every cubic inch of her homage. The man who had just bowed to the party is the same man she saw on the morning of the Chicago attack, in her visions, in her dreams. The man is alarmingly tall, at least six and a half feet, which makes Snake, who's already tall, pale in comparison. There's not too many people in the world that the FBI director ever looks up to in that sense; this stranger is a paragon. Robin's heard of interesting appearances, as has Corrin, of the city's inhabitants, but it does not make this any less strange. A gemstone is placed in the middle of the man's forehead, perhaps having been glued on, or stitched on, she is unable to tell. At a certain glance, if Robin moves her head in any particular way, it seems like the gem glows, the color ever changing. The man's hair is a tinge darker than Midna's, and way more subdued than Roy's wave of lava hair, but auburn still. It is short on the top, and grows underneath as a beard. His eyes are an ever so deep shade of brown, a luscious caramel with hints of toffee running through, and Robin is now stuck unsure whether she should feel alarmed or mystified. Why is this man here? The same man who had held Fiora in his arms, when the entire world had exploded.

The man rights himself after having just bowed, eyes bright, and as the look of Detroit has so far been, welcoming. "My lords," he says to Mac and Snake, and then to the women, "My lady Robin. Your Grace, Madam Corrin," which elicits a guffaw from Snake, the FBI director running a hand over his mouth to keep the sudden burst of noise quiet. The stranger furrows his eyebrows together. "I seem to have confused you."

"Usually we're not greeted _that_ formally. Sir and ma'am, certainly, but not lords or ladies. However, I imagine they must do things differently here in Detroit. Nice to meet you," Snake explains, outstretching his hand, which the stranger takes heartily. "I'm Snake Karlo, the FBI director for the United States."

Robin is still stuck in the thaw of uncertainty. This... this aardvark fellow has appeared in her own head, and although he is bizarre to take into style wise, nothing seems extraordinary that she could think of. She steals a glance at Corrin, and is confused even moreso than she already is; the president hasn't moved from her last stop which is a good foot behind all the others. Her eyes are wide, mouth parted open, and the expression that crosses her face is a mix of confusion and fear. It seems the vice president is not alone in her sentimentality.

"A pleasure," the stranger heartily accepts the handshake. "You may call me by Ganondorf, Mr. Karlo. I am one of the members of the Council of Thirteen. We have been expecting your arrival."

"Ganondorf?" Mac furrows his eyebrows together. "Not Gerry? Anything simpler?"

"Us here in Detroit have odd names, I know," the man, Ganondorf, nods as acceptance to the peculiarity of his namesake. "The other members are even odder than I am, if that's even possible."

Robin hopes it isn't just her that Ganondorf's way of speaking is eloquent, far more eloquent than anyone she's heard in quite some time. An almost archaic form of speech, with odd placements of nouns and verbs... all said with a twinkling gleam in the man's eye that she is unable to read. She shakes his hand next. "Robin Wyndel, the current vice president," the silverette turns to her partner in crime, "I imagine you must-"

"Oh, yes, I do know who she is!" Ganondorf cuts her off, stepping out of the mesh that three had created, arms widening out as if he is preparing for a hug. The air lifts, and it seems the day becomes brighter simply by the outward expression of recognition and joy. "President Corrin of the United States of America. Might I say you look absolutely lovely today! It's been a long time, dear friend."

This causes Corrin to laugh nervously, eyes flashing one of panic. She shakes the council member's hand in earnest despite that, placing a fake smile on her lips. Robin can tell that it is fake and forced by the curling of the lip, the stretch of her grin that is too far than normal. "I'm sorry. We've met?"

"A long time ago. You don't recall?" Ganondorf sounds nearly hurt.

Corrin's cheeks flush a tint of embarrassed red. "I can't say I have. I figure I would remember someone as interesting as you, Mr..." she trails off, not having a last name.

"Perish, Madam President."

The vice president raises an eyebrow. The council member's name is Ganondorf Perish; she can't say she's heard stranger or anything more outlandish than that. It is also the first time she notices his dress. Like his speech, it is something she wouldn't even see the Amish wear. It's a doublet, dark brown in color, that goes down to a long pair of pants similar in design. A cape is attached to the back, almost like a king's - perhaps an indication of an ego, perchance? - that is touching the ground. Ganondorf is wearing gloves, leathered and hiding his wrists. She can see his neck and face, which is a more subdued olive tone, as if his skin is a pasty fishy green. Robin believes that this day is getting stranger and stranger by the moment.

Corrin sucks on her bottom lip. "Well, Mr. Perish, I am unfortunately not able to remember if we've ever met. This is my first time in Detroit, actually."

Ganondorf chuckles lowly, which causes Mac to tense. Aggression, a secret darkness hidden in the tone and the vibration of the throat. "I have never once stepped outside of this city, so I must be mistaking you for someone else," as he turns, Robin catches that his eyes subdue to a lower shade than usual warmness. Goosebumps erupt all over her exposed arms, and she's longing to have worn a jacket instead. "Thank you for getting here on such short notice, Madam President. The Council has been eager to meet you."

"And I have not been eager to meet _any_ of them..." the silverette in question says lowly so only Robin can hear it. If she has any better sense, Robin would swat her comrade on the arm for even daring to be so openly disrespectful in such a close proximity, but that'd be an immediate clue to discontent among their ranks. It is one of Corrin's mottos as she's five glasses deep in Merlot - _we arrive as a unit,_ Corrin slurs sluggishly, syllables rolling over each other like waves, _and we're solid as stone statues. If they can't smell disturbances, we're the best at fooling them into trusting us_ \- that comes to Robin's mind.

"How long do you think this may take?" Mac asks, folding his arms similar to Snake's.

Ganondorf purses his lips. "That is hard to say. Us Council Members can be fickle; I'm not used to their patterns of discussion and decision making yet. I've been a recent member, Mr. Sarasota, only a few months, and it is not all the time we convene for important matters such as the president of the United States requesting our audience."

Robin wants to point out that the secret service agent never had a chance to get his name out, so how Ganondorf knows it brings a stab of cold ice fear to her heart, a dagger sinking in which precision akin to that of an assassin. It goes unnoticed by Mac, who simply shrugs, looking at Corrin for guidance. The atmosphere is starting to be heavier by the minute, a tension building on Robin's shoulders threatening to push her down any further.

"Then we might as well start, shall we?" Snake nods.

"Mr. Sarasota," Ganondorf's hand eclipses the doorknob which would lead the party into the glass sphere, having paused his actions. "What is your position with this group?"

The brunette's neck floods with a tinge of pink. "I'm their bodyguard."

Ganondorf weighs this information, closing his eyes, a gleam of tom-foolery Robin notices as if the council member could trick her. "I'm afraid that is not an esteemed enough position for the Council. While they discuss, you're more than welcome to peruse the hall. Is that alright with you?"

Mac locks his jaw, perhaps to argue back, but Robin can sense the atmosphere start to turn, and they're not prepared to fight off strange adversaries in a foreign country. "That is more than fine," she overrides the comment that the secret service agent is sure to say that could cause World War III. "We'll make sure to be thorough..." Robin is bothered by how Corrin is not saying anything; she's always got something to say.

A smile returns to Ganondorf's face, and he swings the door open to the Council's hall. "Perfect! Well, my lords, my ladies, if you may follow me."

As he passes, a gust of wind lifts his cloak up, and it is a flash fast enough for Robin to discern out details. Something odd catches her eye. Half of Ganondorf's back is a mess of chrome plating and wires, grooves for screws and nuts and bolts. She extends her gaze to look down his arm, as the doublet and cape obstructs most of his actual body. His right arm is all metallic, more wires, nearly synthetic. It's then that she realizes.

Ganondorf Perish must be some half human, half cyborg like creature. Detroit sure is strange.

However, for his - Ganondorf's, that is - credit, the foursome remains standing as the council member strolls into the building all alone, caught up in a world of his own. Corrin takes the first steps to the door, but before she can think of reaching for the knob, Robin grabs her wrist, stopping her. The president locks eyes with her, and the emotion is mirrored: fear, peculiarity, uncertainty, and distrust.

"Something feels wrong..." Corrin says first, biting on her lower lip.

"I recognize him!" Robin urges, pressing her thumb into the other silverette's skin, leaving a mark.

If the president hadn't looked entirely shell-shocked by the first revelation of meeting the caped stranger, this brings her to her knees. "What?"

"I had a dream a few days ago," Robin lowers her voice to a whisper in case cameras could pick up on the conversation. Her strange behavior rouses Snake's attention, who leans in as well. "I'll spare the details, but he _was_ in my dream. Holding someone in his arms, though I couldn't quite tell," and that's that. She leaves out the detail of the president herself being in the dream and acting like a devil, which is another gauntlet to tackle at another time, or Fiora, which would put the entire world in a spin. "I've been stuck on it for days, but it's _him..._ "

"Ganondorf? You've dreamed of Ganondorf?" Snake repeats, and then makes a scoffing noise. "Robin, do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?"

"No, it isn't," Corrin cuts the director off, and the wild look returns in her eyes. "I've seen him too, but not in dreams..." the president's brow furrows together, as she's trying to recollect her memories in the right manner. "Visions, almost. Passing glimpses while at my desk, or sleeping," her eyes widen. "His gemstone," she says, voice a ghost of whisper. "That's what I've been seeing. The gemstone sewn into his forehead."

"Does it mean something, then?" Mac joins the discussion, hand going back to his gun. "I don't like the idea of not being in the room; I should stay with my gun and-"

"No," Corrin rejects the idea. "We're lucky that the Council even agreed to let us speak to them. It is the least we can do to at the very least follow their rules, the seldom ones they have. If we need you, we'll let you know."

"And if they try to murder you?" the brunette argues back.

"They'd be stupid to." The tone in the president's voice seems to suggest feelings that lie elsewhere; a seed of doubt that plants itself into the soil and leaves its roots to spread all across the body. Boils, a fever, cancer cells, and Corrin's confidence crumbles. "We're the most important dignitaries of a country that is near the most powerful in the world."

"If we're so powerful, we wouldn't be coming to them to ask for military help..." Snake adds, musing. He looks away when Corrin flashes him a glare.

Robin is stumped on what to do. Is it a situation to cry wolf at? Ganondorf, on the exterior, seems to be relaxed and calm, and just for the most part, different. Then... "Did you notice his back and right arm?" she says, picking her head up.

"What about his back and right arm?"

"Metallic," she answers. "Like... not prosthetics, but covered in metal. Like a-"

"Cyborg..." Mac whispers.

"Does that mean something, you think?"

Corrin frowns, placing a finger on her jaw, her nail digging into the flesh, drawing scarlet. Scarlet that causes Robin to wince. "I can't tell..." she bites on her lower lip like Snake had done earlier. "For all we know, it is just an odd stylistic choice... or a tattoo. After all, we hear that these Detroit people _are_ strange..."

"Not _that_ strange!" Mac gestures wildly at the globe.

The conversation ends there, as Corrin is unable to take it anymore. Robin sees it in the way she throws her hands up so carelessly, hair blowing in the breeze. "It doesn't matter. We're leaving them waiting; by now they must suspect something is up. You heard Ganondorf... we've got to go and follow him." With that, the president wrenches open the hall door to the council chamber, immersing herself into the fake grandeur of Detroit's glass sphere.

Robin exchanges glances with the two men, Snake sighing, Mac wiping his brow with a thumb. A sickening feeling builds deep in Robin's stomach, but there's no turning back; not anymore, not anymore. Taking a deep breath - there's only so much a day can go from bad to worse to awful - she follows the president, opening the door.

Judgment day.

* * *

"Announcing President Corrin Etch of the United States of America. Announcing Vice President Robin Wyndel of the United States of America. Announcing Federal Bureau of Investigation director Snake Karlo of the United States of America," Ganondorf says immediately following the creaking sound of heavy doors being pushed open, his voice thunderous and booming.

Corrin is blasted in the face with a rush of cold air, chills nipping at her arms and legs. The hair on the back of her neck stands straight up as she steps into the council chamber. The hall is spacious, built like the lobby of the Capitol building, she realizes, with a domed ceiling, nothing extravagant than rather sordid white paint to decorate it. There is an expanse of tiled floor sprawled on the bottom, wounding carpeted pairs of stairs set on the sides of the chamber. The stairs, carpeted a dark green, a shade darker than Corrin's eyes, lead to a large singular piece of furniture: a desk. The desk is thirteen seats long, twelve occupants already sat, a vacant seat at the end which ends up being Ganondorf's. Robin and Snake, with Mac obediently waiting outside, follow suit, standing behind her in profile as the doors shut.

The echo is ghastly across the curved walls.

" _So, this is the esteemed Council of Thirteen,"_ Corrin thinks to herself, her shades in her pocket, now with open eyes and no obscurity to assess the area around her. " _They seem to be nothing much._ "

"Welcome, Madam Corrin!" greets a voice, hardened and stout. Her gaze follows up from the floor - a good distance of at least ten feet, intimidation purposes perhaps - to the speaker, the person sitting in the center of the thirteen, most likely the leader of the council. "We are all honored to meet your acquaintance, honored to have you here in our abode."

"You are not a good liar, Fox," snaps a woman on the man's left, her hair a vivacious, curly blonde. Her eyes remind Corrin of Cloud's. "You hate this council meeting nearly as much as I am for having to endure it."

It seems the trend of Detroit council members being outlandish in name and appearance has not stopped, rather kicking off to new heights. Looking at the person who spoke to her, this Fox fellow, Corrin can see that her mind cannot discern whether or not the man has truly turned himself into the forest animal. Fox's eyes are an auburn color, hair, or in this case, _fur,_ a similar shade. His ears are pointed, nose elongated to a snout, and it all must be a matter of freakish makeup, she can figure.

"Please, Samus, not right away. We _haven't_ even spoken!" Fox argues back. Corrin raises an eyebrow. Ah... Samus. That name already sounds like trouble. Samus belongs to the curly haired blonde woman who's already made her opinion quite known.

"Let her be," advises someone on Samus' immediate left, and this appearance makes Corrin try to halt her laughter from ever being uttered. "Samus will be as brash as always. You can trust me, Fox, that I, Falco will be partial." A bird. That is this council member's shtick; hair made to be plumage, high and grand, a stunning navy in color, rather his entire body is swathed and dunked into a navy color.

Corrin sees that Fox actually has a gavel, in case to call the council to order. He slams the gavel down, _down, CRACK, down, CRACK,_ and it is the hail of gunfire all over again. The president winces at each hit. Fox relents after a few smacks, sighing. "Councilors, leave your petty grievances at the door. Since they've hardly had a chance to speak, we might as well introduce ourselves... instead of this shambled mess," he grumbles.

Robin matches her partner evenly now, side-by-side. "Too late to abort?" she whispers.

"Oh, _very late,"_ Corrin laughs.

With Fox's permission, the councilors begin introducing themselves. Starting at the far end is a man of Asian looking descent, perhaps one of the normal denizens of the freakish council, jet black hair matching an ever darker complexion, a blood red headband tied around his head, by the name of Ryu. To Ryu's left are a pair of twins, Corrin can deduce easily enough, Willard and Winnie, both in their mid-thirties, with brunette hair, bright oceanic eyes, and a politeness that even Robin could learn from. Next to the twins is someone that causes Corrin's eyebrows to raise up a few inches higher than normal. A... figure, though Fox swears to be a talking anthromorphic animal, lupine completely from head-to-toe covered in azure fur, called Lucario. Lucario sits in his chair crisscrossed, eyes closed, hands together, as if he is meditating.

Following Robin is a woman of tall stature, wings on her back. Corrin chuckles to herself; if only Pit could see these people now for the freaks they were, wouldn't it be something? The woman introduces herself as Palutena, a goddess of some sort - perhaps with enough drug overdosing, the goddess could keel over from a mortal weakness - with iridescent hair, a caduceus leaning up against her chair which she'd ever so often grip. After Palutena, a man who causes Robin to do a double take, looking at the council member, her reflection in one of the windows, and then the man again. The man, going by Rob, is the exact replica of the vice president, with silverette hair combed nicely back in a general wave. The eye color is the same, mannerisms the same, and even a voice that matches her tone. Perhaps a fan from far away who decided to take their obsession a step too far?

Fox takes the middle, as Corrin had deduced before, and although his mannerism is calm, she can tell that this leader is used to authoritative positions, given the strength in his voice, and the muscled arm that bangs the gavel down, _down, down._

On his immediate right is the fattest human being Corrin has ever set her gaze on, and even stranger. The stranger's voice is pompous from the very first word - "I am King Dedede, king of the world Pop Star, President Corrin," the councilor introduces himself - as his words fill the room with an air of egotistical narcissism. Corrin reckons she should teach this avarice fool about the story of Narcissus; it'd end on a good story. King Dedede is indeed fat, a round yellow face, with a large pair of duck lips put on his mouth, sky blue in color, and he lifts a massive hammer.

Perhaps the other normal looking council member besides Ryu and the twins is Rosalina, which Corrin is immediately drawn to. The woman has flaxen hair that rests gently against the small of her back, a teal dress hugging a slim and nearly paper thin figure. Her eyes sparkle and gleam with the beauties of the star ways, a twinkle that hooks the president in and never lets go. Next to her is Samus, which Corrin already dislikes, seeing the stare of defiance in the back of her skull. Then there is Falco, which who has made his voice known. On Falco's right, is Wolf O'Donnell, and like the other two named after animals, Corrin sees that he's covered head-to-toe in amaranthine fur, a snout with the charcoal black nose, and snarling eyes that are burning like coals in a dwindling fire. Rounding out the beautiful - Corrin uses that term as loosely as she can possibly give herself - council is Ganondorf, and it is near funny in hindsight to Corrin that she thought the eloquent speaking man is the oddest one of them all.

The introductions feel like they drag on, to where Snake yawns, ducks under Corrin's glare, and dodges Samus's more vicious stare. Fox claps the gavel on the desk once more, after Ganondorf relinquishes his title and backstory, and it seems the meeting can rise to a beginning.

"Now that we are all under way, this meeting can begin," Fox's shoulders visibly relax, which causes Corrin to smirk to herself. _First mistake._ "For the record, it is April 9th, 2094, nearing 10AM, with the heads of state for the United States of America. Madam Corrin, the floor is yours to speak."

Thirteen pairs of eyes flash to her all at once, as if they were a moving autonomous unit. Corrin jumps slightly, at the sudden push of attention. It isn't her to not be prepared, and definitely feeling captured underneath a vicious gaze. She begins to sweat, not expecting to be put out into the spotlight like that so quickly, so _suddenly,_ the air getting hotter. A few seconds pass, in which the mood of the council members begins to change. Samus, already not on board, clearly by her outbursts, rests a hand against the side of her face and yawns. Corrin's right eye begins to twitch - _how dare she,_ she snarls to herself, _doesn't she realize how lucky she is?_ \- but Corrin stops it before it gets out of hand.

King Dedede is more fascinated with a buzzing fly than the silverette, and it snaps in the president's mind that she'll bring the roof in down on this place. Disliking her, she can take. Disrespect? Corrin would rather be shot at pointe blank range than take on more insolence and complete refusal to her authority. She gives one look back at Snake and Robin, who's lack of reassurance does wonders for her self-confidence. Her mouth goes dry, her throat closes up, and it seems as if she's never publicly spoken in front of a group before. Peculiar, and odd, she figures.

"Good morning, Council of Thirteen," she begins, wincing, as Corrin has never in all of her years of politics sounded this so fake yet genuine at the same time. "As you are honored, we are honored, humbled, and most thankful for seeing us on such short notice. Though tensions were high only a few years ago, I have come to realize with my administration that alienation is not a good strategy for America on a global scheme..." her eyes dart around the room, trying to catch who's interested, but no one seems to be biting except Fox and Ganondorf. "I imagine you have heard of America's newest form of government, Syrenet, which had been involved in your revolution only a short while ago."

"To terminate us," the councilor, Wolf, snarls, leaning forward out of his seat. "I remember! They killed my best friend-"

"Enough!" Fox bangs his gavel on the counter again, glaring at the other animal-man. "Your opinions will be kept silent, unless you wish to remove yourself from the chamber."

Corrin's glare sinks Wolf back into his seat more than Fox's warning, and the president closes her eyes. Not to ward off light this time, but to force the negativity out of her head, to keep the thoughts of burning everyone and every person in the room with a death fitting to those who'd dare go against her. "Relationships between Detroit and Syrenet have not been excellent as of yet, and I'm hoping to change that. On the news, I and the units of Syrenet are trying to create cells for the governmental branch in the country. Syrenet is a militaristic task force, like a division of the army, focused on covert missions similar to the FBI, but also as a form of economic sustenance in properties like technological advancements. Militarized suits of armor that have AI Units in them, mini computers that are figments of digital worlds implemented in the suit," she holds for gravitas, which appeals to the twins', Rosalina's, and Falco's attention. Lucario still hadn't broken his meditation. "However, our efforts to get these branches off the ground, which would help our nation rather than hurt it, have been squandered-"

"Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Chicago, Illinois. And now you want to do Detroit, Michigan, don't you?" interrupts Samus, the blonde flashing the president a contemptuous look filled to the brim with venom. She had been counting on her fingers the names of both failures, and correctly assuming, a third endeavor.

The silverette wants to rip the real-life Barbie doll's head off the rest of her body and let the council deal with the mess, but she swallows her rage, forging ahead. "Yes. Two attempts so far in Oklahoma City and Chicago that have been rejected, by three bands of rebels broken into sectors of our country. The East, the West, and the Midwest, a single alliance that we believe to be the destruction of Syrenet. Just yesterday, our Chicago missive had been invaded by the Midwestern force, with the deaths of citizens and Chicago police force, and the near-death experience of one of our Syrenetic captains," Corrin swallows, her throat becoming heavy as she thinks of Marth's cold, lifeless body in the hospital, dressed in a light, see-through gown, broken and stuck in a coma, unable to come to terms with this impeding doom. "Now, our gaze goes up north, to here, to Detroit..." This is it. The sales pitch. Now or never, and Corrin Etch is shit sure to perform. "Syrenet, and then as an extension, the U.S government, wants to create a branch here in your country, in your city-state, to get things off the ground. As an add-on, I'd like the enlistment of your armed forces to help us squash the rebel forces plaguing my country and my attempts at bettering the establishment as a whole."

"And what if we're attacked instead," prompts Ryu, and although not aggressive by his tone, he does pound a fist onto the desk. "By joining as an alliance?"

"A chance we take?" Corrin shrugs lamely.

"And what is in it for us, Madam President?" Fox raises his voice a bit higher than his usual commands, but her respect rises as Fox keeps his tone civil, and his question harmless. Corrin darts her eyes over to Ganondorf, surprised to see that the councilor hadn't shifted in his seat but once to scratch his back, arms held tightly to his sides, gaze directed just to right of the silverette, on the floor.

It is Robin's turn to speak, as her eloquence is more than necessary. "Economists have trajectories on what Syrenet will do for the American economy. Since you follow a capitalistic system, it is said that the benefits will be the same. Under much discussion, Corrin agreed, as it has not been done before, that the city-state of Detroit, like the Vatican City in Italy, will be a fully recognized country of the world by the United States, and furthermore, our allies."

Electricity seizes the council, hushed whispers rising and falling, and even those who had been begrudging in their efforts to accept even a notion of alliance, perk their heads up at the idea. Fox's eyes glow with the possibility of success that reaches the stars. "And what would those extensions be?"

"A recognized currency, language, a flag, a country _named_ Detroit, economic success, a defined border and laws and rules. Global recognition..." Robin counts off the perks with her fingers, eyes occasionally going to look up at the ceiling in marking sure her position.

"All if we allow Syrenet a position here in the country _and_ if we offer our military to fight insurgences?" the female twin, Winnie, reiterates. Corrin wants to hit the woman on the head with a baseball bat. It is as if the lady decided to sit there in her chair and just regurgitate everything that had been said over the past few minutes. The people of other countries ample around like long lost ducks and idiots, she deduces.

"That's all," Corrin nods her head.

"No more?"

"Nothing more," the silverette agrees, and then holding a finger up. "More can always be added should these first few steps prove to be exemplary beyond measure."

Fox leans back in his chair, banging the gavel. Corrin locks eyes with Ganondorf, having passed her gaze. This time his own seizes her, a fire gripping hold. Corrin's body heats up, but this is an unnatural heat, a heat that causes her to scald and burn and thrash. She stirs uncomfortably, as Ganondorf lifts his head up, the gears in his head turning, shifting, _thinking, contemplating, dreaming, believing..._ and Corrin is enraptured in the soulfulness of his pensive state.

However, as she brings her attention, albeit painfully, to the congregation, a swamp of voices overshadow each other. Samus is yelling belligerently across the room at Ryu who is screaming back. Fox is constantly banging on his gavel, trying to sustain order, but it may very well be the cycle of how the group operates that this happens. Rosalina is acting as the mediator between Ryu and Samus, which elicits Wolf's snarl to be shouted as apparently the flaxen haired woman is _too_ soft, which gets King Dedede to fight for her, and soon everyone besides Lucario and Ganondorf are in a yelling fight.

Snake joins Robin and Corrin, who are merely watching with their eyes dancing across the events taking place. "So, shall we consider this a success?"

"Well, given no one has killed each other yet..." Corrin says absentmindedly, head still turned at Ganondorf's expression, "I'd say it may very well be." The councilor not meditating, and the one not involved in the ruckus, is observing, chin tucked to his chest, hands resting on the sides of his chair, even going so far back as to lean. Corrin wonders what would happen if he leaned just a bit _too_ far over. Should he fall down the flight of carpeted stairs, would he be injured? Since it's carpet, do people get cut and bruised and injured by it? Would his skin catch fire like paper mache? She is uncertain. She wonders if he bleeds scarlet like all other men. All men bleed, the president knows that well enough, but can a man bleed the same way another may. That remains a mystery.

"I think they'll take a while." Robin chomps on the inside of her cheek as she says this, hands fidgeting with themselves in front of her.

"Oh? And what gave you that idea?" Snake guffaws.

"Given the situation, this humor is not appreciative..."

"Just look at them!" the director exclaims, throwing his hands out to encompass the chaos. "They're going to rip each other to shreds, and by all means let them!"

Corrin drifts her mind away from Snake and Robin's heated discussion, which could never rise to the level of the supposed orderly individuals risen above them. Ganondorf turns his head back to her way, eyes lock again, and their dance continues. A flamenco, with spicy heels and a hot pink dress, and it is his first move, until the heat pools so loud. A clock begins ticking in the back of the president's head, an estranged divide from it all. A tick, a tock, and a boom. Over and over again it repeats, while Corrin's face searches the elusive council member.

She knows him from somewhere, elsewhere in her dreams. Thinking of Robin's connection, via a dream, how would they be interlinked? She can't think of it right now, with the numbing shaw of noise that is erupting over the hall. Ganondorf's glean in his eye represents mischief, a smile playing on his lips, and the gentleman demeanor fades, revealing a core of trouble and greed and amusement. All an act, Corrin realizes; how right she had been, how right she always is. The ticking gets louder.

 _Tick._

 _Tock._

The room rises to a fever pitch, the noise swelling, the walls expanding, and soon the hall would turn into a burst balloon. A heart attack on steroids.

 _Tick, tock._

 _Tick, tock._

 _Tick._

 _Tock._

 _Tick, tock._

 _Tick, tock, tick, tock._

 _Tick tock._

 _Tick._

 _Tock._

 _Boom._

* * *

Mac has never appreciated being told he is not allowed to do something. It is not in his nature, to sit idly by and let things be. That is a part of his soul that will never identify with rules. As he sits outside the closed, locked doors of the chamber, he can hear the swell of noise rise and fall like that of the waves of the ocean crashing on a sandy, white shore. A cleanse, washing away the grime, dirt, and filth of the world before it; leaving things better than how they had been found out to be.

His talents are much better used than simply sitting on his hands - a commonality he does when bored - on a rough bench. He can hear it all, every sound byte. Corrin's wavering confidence that ebbs a strength only a woman can pervade, where despite weakness, there is strength in here. A feeling of pride swells in the man's heart; he's proud of their commander in chief, dealing with what only sounds like a pile of rubbish. A smart fool, a gallant fool, and a unwise fool are all the same; they share the concept of being fools, and in that they cannot contest with the silver viper queen with preying eyes.

The secret service agent shakes his leg back and forth, up and down, his dress shoed foot making tap noises that echo along the walls. The hall is indeed pretty on the inside, he can give the place that much credit. It's a problem that everyone inside the building, however, seems to have been rolled over with plastic and left to melt out in the blazing sun. Rotten, spoilt milk must be thrown out, and Mac is sure that the council members are like that as well.

He's bored sitting in the same spot, so Mac stands up, stretching, running a hand through his hair. Looking back at the door, he can hear that the sounds of excitement have lowered themselves back to a more... calm state, hearing someone by the name of Fox speak in authoritative tones. All seems to be good, so it can afford Mac a quick run to the bathroom. After asking an attendant - most likely another worker of the Council and its many branches: education, environment, finance, housing, food, emergency services and so on and so forth - his stroll lands him in front of another chromed door, with a plaque in the middle of the frame. _Restrooms for the Male Gender._

It causes the brunette to roll his eyes. Even in naming something, these pretentious leaders have to pour their eloquences all over it; a drop of honey splattering onto a crème calling card, soothing outwards and rising up in luxury. He pushes the ' _Restrooms for the Male Gender'_ door open, stepping inside. The bathroom on the inside is no different than any other bathroom he's seen, with blizzard white tiled walls, blizzard white tiled floors, blizzard white stalls and urinals, and the platinum build of the sinks. A blur, a blur that Mac cannot figure out where he's going until he bumps into the sink counter, the obtuse piece of granite nearly invisible due to its coat of paint.

He turns one of the faucets on, splashing his face with water. There's been a noticeable lack of amount of sleep passing around the Syrenet party, and its claws are starting to sink in to Mac's façade; he's used to running marathons at four in the morning, working on half an hour sleep, drinking coffee like its water, throwing back Aleve and Tylenol and antidepressants to keep the blood flowing. Eating chicken breasts so hardly cooked that his stomach churns in protest for hours on end, but he keeps on pushing.

His phone in his pocket vibrates, signifying a text message. Water drips off of his nose into the sink, not reaching for a paper towel from the dispenser. He swipes the lock screen off from his phone, reading the text message. It's from Midna, her name displayed in an italic-like font, the font similar to a word processor's step drenched in a scarlet coating.

 _Midna_

 _~ Arrived at the base in Detroit. How are things going?_

 _Mac_

 _~ Alright. These people are weird._

 _Midna_

 _~ Weird in what way?_

 _Mac_

 _~ If you ever meet them, you'll find out._

He sends the message, setting his phone down and looking back in the mirror. His eyes are bloodshot red, from the evident lack of sleep. After the meeting, whenever it adjourns, he fancies himself a nap with silk satin sheets and decadent chocolate strawberries to help pass the time. There's been talk of going back to the hospital and waiting for Marth to wake up, but Mac's heart is telling him to stay behind so he can reset his natural nocturne clock. Mac pulls back a few haphazard strands of his gelled hair, setting it nice and neatly back into its usual fold. Prim and proper is the way to go, his father always used to say. His father then changed to saying that a bottle of whiskey had been the way to go, when he turned senile and lost his mind.

It's why Mac picked up the bottle; a strange intuition that he has to follow in his father's footsteps. Like father, like son, in every essence of the word. Mac does not follow that rule to the T, he notes, though. He's not an air conditioner salesman. He's the head of the secret service personnel team for the president of the United States; a much better gig. Mac Sarasota is the early to bed, early to rise kind of guy, where his bird wins the worm every time, and his work ethic is infallible.

Mac splashes more water in his face, fingers drumming against the countertop.

It's late, after Robin and Corrin had both gone to bed after yesterday's drunk game of billiards, and both men remain in the bar. Mac's now drinking water, wanting to play one last round before passing out too... it's nearing three in the morning and the signs are all exterior, saying he and Snake need to leave. It's a conversation that the two have, the last they had really spoken to one another had been back at the FBI agency on the night of Cloud's disappearance, when Mac foolishly brings the pair of Victoria Secret's lingerie with him as a gift for Midna after a single one-night stand.

He chuckles. " _If there's one thing from my father besides drinking I inherited, it's his bad game with women..."_

The FBI director snags another ball in one of the top pockets, now down to a singular shot, where Mac still has five scattered across the pool table. Snake is drinking Bud Light, on his fourth of the entire evening, but now it is starting to slow him down just a tad. He isn't drunk, but the sobriety is being to wean off the edge some.

 _Mac polishes the tip of his pool stick. "Sir?" he asks, voice gentle._

 _Snake rights himself after making his shot. Another score, another tally on his board, another failure Mac can cough up. "Yes, Mac?"_

 _"Do you have faith in Syrenet? In this mission?"_

 _A pause from the director, who had gone for his beer. "And why do you ask me that?"_

 _"I'm just... curious," Mac's cheeks burn bright red, as he aims for a shot, misses the cue ball, and nearly launches the pool stick out of his hand. He really needs some sleep, but something other worldly is compelling him to not go and satisfy his needs in a dose of heavy slumber. He is to stay up and continue this conversation, a genuine conversation. A real conversation. "After today, I mean-"_

 _"You had asked Marth the same question, didn't you?" Snake leans up against the table._

 _"How would you know about that?"_

 _"I overheard you in the kitchen."_

 _Again the secret service agent's face flushes out of embarrassment. His mind always jumps to the worst conclusions; of course he does, it's a Sarasota gene. Like father, like son. Like father, like son. Likefatherlikeson, likefatherlikeson, likefatherlikeson... Mac realizes he's gripping the pool stick so hard his knuckles are turning white. "I mean it, Mr. Karlo," he feels compelled to use the respectfulness of a Mr. and Mrs. "Here we are trying to do something good for the country and we're shot down like it's poison. Those rebels murdered people today. We all nearly died!"_

 _"War is messy, Mac," Snake says, with a sigh._

 _"This isn't warfare. It shouldn't be," he urges._

 _"If I had an answer for you, I'd tell you."_

Mac juts his head away from the mirror, looking elsewhere. "If I had an answer for you, I'd tell you..." he whispers to himself. He flicks water off of his hands into the sink, drying off his face, and stepping back into the hallway. The restroom door closes behind him with a lock. He is standing in the circular hallway, in the glass dome with the spider-like legs and the Saturn-like rings that decorate the council hall.

Sunlight is streaming in due to the walls being entirely made of glass, and it hits his skin. However, despite being bathed in warmth and kindness, Mac rubs his arms together like a breeze has passed over him. If he's doused in sunlight, why is he feeling so cold? The hair on the back of his neck stands up again, goosebumps crawling up and down his arms like spiders, spiders with pincers, spiders with fangs, spiders with emerald green eyes, spiders with auburn hair... he shudders at the thought.

He walks back over to the bench, sitting down. Looking at his phone, he sees that Midna has not messaged him back. Mac furrows his eyebrows together, in confusion. She normally responds right away, but there's always another reason, he has to tell himself lest Mac gets carried away. Thoughts that move with wild, reckless abandon. A free horse, with an elegant mane of onyx hair, hooves stampeding down on matted dirt. Why must she toy with him like so? He can feel her lips on his, her lips pressing into his shoulder blades, down the small of his back as ghostly whispers float amidst every rivet of his spine. Tingles start at his scalp and slowly rise, and her hushed sweet nothings fill his ear.

Soon, however, they morph into Snake's rugged voice, as Mac's mind lapses back to the conversation.

" _I think this is weighing too much on your mind, Mac," the director says, shaking his head after getting his last ball in, making the other brunette the loser of that round. "I gave Roy the same conversation, actually."_

 _That alerts Mac, who sits up straighter over at his seat by the bar. His glass of water is empty, having finished drinking it ages ago. Any time someone mentions that redhead, his blood sears. He can see the way Roy Arcadia looks at him - he thinks the name sharply, venomously, a diluted poison that stops the heart - with dark eyes that are burning in jealousy. Everyone gives Roy Arcadia the benefit of the doubt for being the new kid, when in actuality, Mac Sarasota is the last person to join the rungs on the totem pole; he's the one everyone should be flocking to. "What about Roy?"_

 _"I had to cut the hard truths about working for Syrenet, and working for Corrin. It sounds like you need the same talk," Snake sets the pool stick back in its usual position on the wall, his having been the largest, it looms over the rest. A reminder, a painful reminder that Snake Karlo, the director of the prestigious FBI, will always be better than him, always better than the new kid, the new guy on the block, the last rung of the ladder, the last block on the totem pole. A vicious stabbing feeling builds in Mac's stomach, a twist of his intestines, a pain that will not go away._

 _He crosses his legs to try and forget about the unusual feeling. "Like what, then?"_

 _"Corrin will ask us to do things we don't want to do. I will ask you to do things you don't want to do, but sometimes we must just... do them," Snake says, somewhat resignedly._

 _"Even if it becomes something completely moral robbing?"_

 _Snake's eyes cloud over. "Yes. Even then..."_

A burst of noise from the other side of the door rouses Mac's attention, a jut from the day-to-day cycle of usual thought. He looks up, staring at the door. He is unsure of what the sudden unleash of sound had been. A scream? A yell out of anger? A laugh? Mac leans into the door, hand resting squarely on the butt of his pistol.

Then, a scream.

"Corrin!" Mac shouts, hands going for the gilded knob on the doorframe. He twists the knob left and right, but the door won't budge. It's locked! "Corrin!" he yells again, and the screaming continues. _Robin? Snake?_ The secret service agent lets go of the knob, breathing heavily in and out. Alrighty, now or never.

Mac throws his body weight at the door, which buckles once under the brunt force. He cracks his neck, tilting his head left and right. Again, he throws himself at the locked barrier. His left arm is screaming in protest at the contest clashing of momentums, his muscle on fire, the ache a burn that slashes through his entire body. He takes a deep breath, lunges once more, and the door gives way. His body slams into it, a loud cracking noise meaning the door gives way, and sawdust showers the secret service agent.

As he rights himself, with his eyes assessing the scene, it takes everything in his body to not vomit at the sight.

"Corrin! Get away from her!" he screams again, lunging forward.

* * *

Fox bangs the gavel once more on the partition of his desk. It jolts Corrin awake, having leaned up against Robin while the councilors discussed. It had been a good twenty minutes while the congregation spoke and discussed, all the while where Ganondorf sits in his spot, yawns, and grins at the display of inadequacy in front of him. The president straightens herself, smoothing out the furl of her dress.

The councilor looks down at the president - again, how dare he! - with a peering look. "Well, Madam President, it seems we're ready to come to a decision-"

"A decision?" Corrin can't help herself, her mind runs wild, and her snappy tone gives it away. "What decision is there to make? We need your help!"

"Our help?" Wolf leans in, bearing a sneer, the ever present sneer he has for the silverette. "Just a few years ago you have been trying to destroy us."

"And things can change... can't they?" the councilor, Rosalina, the one Corrin is most drawn to, says. Her face is calm, lips pressed together in a smile. However, she - Corrin - sees right through the plasticity. Even the most genuine person is the one who is the fakest out of a body. "I am all for it, Lady Corrin!"

"Of course you are," Samus snips, her blonde curls bouncing in anger as she scolds the other woman. "You're always for change. Change brought the destruction of your last name!"

The slam of the gavel happens once more, and Corrin is thankful that the councilor from heaven, Fox, exists, as he's been the most partial to their situation, their dire situation. "Councilors! Either you leave your spats and childish moments to the streets of Detroit, _or_ I remove you personally from the premises. We need to take a vote on whether or not Detroit will or will not partake in this Syrenet movement."

"I have a question," interrupts Rob, the Robin lookalike. He sits up in his chair, admiring Corrin from behind spectacles, wire-framed glasses with dark lenses. "Do you have an auxiliary plan should our vote prove to be a nay? Anywhere else you can go to for help?"

It is a provoking question that actually causes Corrin to stop and think. Do they have another plan if things go south? She looks over at Robin, who shrugs her shoulders. There isn't a plan, at least nothing discussed up front. Corrin turns back to the councilor who asked the question. "To be honest, no sir, we do not. You are the only hope we have."

"Interesting..." the man muses.

A second passes over the chamber hall, and Fox waits for it to pass. He uses the gavel to signify an announcement. "Now, it is time for us to discuss if we will be a part of this operation. A vote of seven shall decide, yay, or nay, if the city-state country of Detroit will help the United States of America in establishing a Syrenet branch here in our city _and_ to stop rebel insurgencies from making their dream not true. We'll start down at Ryu, and then-"

Corrin examines the other council members, in different states of awakening, like her. One of the members, sitting on the left of Fox, the blue vulpine, Lucario opens his eyes. Corrin's blood freezes as the councilor matches her gaze, Lucario's eyes flashing a liquid gold briefly for a moment. "She's nervous..." he says.

Fox locks his jaw. "You'll have to forgive Lucario. He likes to meditate and feel the aura of everyone in the room. It's why he hasn't been speaking, Madam President. He's been surveying the room."

"She is," Lucario insists, a paw resting against his left cheek. "You can feel it in the way her chest rises and falls. Madam President, are you nervous? Are you afraid that we will really not accept you? I agree change must happen, but not perhaps in such a way that you want it. Forgive me if I am intruding."

She is unsure what to say, instead swallowing the uncertainty and pain of getting told off in front of a group of strangers. Fox leans back, hand resting on the end of the gavel, but his arm does not lift the object. "If there are to be no more interruptions, I'd like the vote to go underway now."

Corrin notices that Robin is by her side again, while Snake is sitting up against the wall. The vice president grabs onto the president's hand, her thumb pressing into the front side of Corrin's knuckles, like braille, or perhaps Morse code, but it is all a message. A warm message, that Robin Wyndel is still feeling motherly and will never transgress that. Starting with Ryu, it is a nay. The twins, Willard and Winnie both say 'yay' with a resounding flourish. Rob agrees with a nod of his head. Down the line it goes, the only other agreement being Fox. As Wolf is the last one to speak, which sounds like it'll cross the border of there being another 'no', Corrin's heart sinks.

That is, until Ganondorf lets out a hearty laugh, a hand on his stomach as he chuckles heavily, scooting backwards in his chair. The noise is effective, an interruption to the stream of order, given it may have been the only long period of time since Corrin has stepped into Detroit that the council has not stilled from its course. Obviously, Corrin deduces to herself, that it would be their first person to greet them officially into the country that'd also be the biggest thorn in her side.

The air stills, and now every pair of eyes glosses over to the very last council member on the far right. Falco crosses his arms over his chest. "Oh, now the eloquent monster speaks."

Corrin raises an eyebrow, noting the word usage. _Eloquent monster?_ Why a monster?

Ganondorf lets the comment slide off of his back, like water off a wing, having pushed his chair away. He is standing again, giving the world a view of his massive height once more. He claps his hands together in a clap, a slow clap. The cliché, the clichéd asshole clap that Corrin is used to happening with Congress meetings - a congressman who thinks they're better than they actually are, with their perfumed socks and candy cane lacings in their hair - but here, the sarcasm actually is directed towards his fellow comrades in government.

Instead of remaining by his chair, Ganondorf walks down the steps, the carpeted emerald green staircase that separates her from them. She begins to back up, Robin's hand still gripping hers. Snake stirs from his spot on the wall, hands going to the inside of his jacket. Corrin remembers what's there, a knife and pistol, in case something goes wrong. He resumes his slow clap, now standing in the middle of the floor, arms outstretched like he had been when he greeted the foursome earlier before.

"Ladies and gentlemen, councilors!" his voice echoes against the domed ceiling. "This has been a sad display of ignorance. Only three of you agreed to help these poor Americans out with their situation. How can we expect Detroit, an upstart country, to ever be recognized if we don't ally ourselves and put our petty differences aside with those that are our neighbors?"

"Now is the not the time, Mr. Perish, for your lectures," Fox sighs, running a hand over his snout.

"There's always time for education, Fox," Ganondorf corrects, wagging a finger. He looks back at Corrin, eyes wide, soulfulness radiating in them. "This world leader, who we must admit runs a country far better than ours, which we were a _part_ of in just recent times, has asked for our help. She's humbled herself to go to those that she can very well bomb off the face of the Earth, and we're too pretentious and vain to even help her. It'll be a much needed proposition!"

Corrin wants to speak, but the syllables stop in her throat. She's got something obstructing it, a birdsong, perhaps a stretch of gratitude for the stranger who is oddly helping her. The president can very well put her on initiative forward, but there's always a time to let a helping hand extend itself. The other council members, besides the twins who had said yes, and Fox who remains partial, are not buying his own sales pitch either.

"You've only been on the council a few months," Palutena, the green-haired lady points out. "Your opinion is the least valued on the council, Ganondorf."

"All our opinions should be weighed on an equal playing field," he says. "It's why we have an uneven number of councilors, so there's an equal level playing field."

"It's a ten to three vote, Ganondorf!" Samus shouts.

"Rather, a nine to four vote, Samus, if you couldn't deduce that I support them myself," Ganondorf smiles, giving another glance back at the president.

"How sweet," Wolf snarks, rolling his eyes. "Do you want us to sing you a song while you dance in circles around her? As a matter of fact, _why_ are you so attached to her? You wouldn't be feeling this way about any other problem, would you?"

Instead of speaking, Ganondorf closes his eyes, head going down to the floor. His fingers hook at the top edge of his cape, lifting the piece of fabric up, before letting it fall to the floor. Corrin's eyes widen in alarm, and the other council members give various signs of shock, either by gasping or similar motions to the president herself. She knows Robin mentioned something, perhaps about seeing a technological merge of human and machine, but physically seeing it is a different story.

His entire back is chrome plated, like individual shoulder pads plaited together across the entirety of his flesh. Different electrical wires swipe in and out of the plates: halcyon, cerulean, scarlet, sunburst orange... some are serrated at the tips, with copper strands shooting everywhere. Sparks of electricity flow from a few of them. His right arm is covered in the same exact manner, but it resembles more of a glove with platinum fingers and a sleek coat of blue paint. Ganondorf's eyes shine a bright gold, the gemstone on his head changing hues to the same color. He's a freak, a monster indeed, but a monster of what?

Corrin removes the hand from her mouth after a period of quiet. Everything slows down like an insect in amber. Ganondorf lets out an exulting sigh, shaking his head back as if he has long locks of hair to do this with. "I know that Corrin does not remember, as she has said as much," the councilor says, his tone sounding somewhat dejected. "Long ago, in the very first few days of her administration, before the mess in our great country came to heel, there was a volunteer program."

"A program to do what, Ganondorf?" Fox asks.

"To join Syrenet, of course," he answers. "In more ways than you can think. Though I feel like she doesn't know, Madam President that is, it was an opportunity to transform yourself with Syrenetic technology. Half man, half machine."

"Human testing with their material..." Rosalina realizes this, a hand going to cover her mouth, diamond eyes wide, a crystalline tear starting to slide down her cheek.

This is all news to Corrin. She's never heard of this leg of Syrenet before... unauthorized human experimentations with mortal volunteers? How come this is all now information that she's heard for the first time? Ganondorf makes a slight smile with his lips. "I like to call myself Syrenet's first mortal creation. It has helped me more than anyone can ever imagine," and he looks back at her. "I must say thank you, Madam President, for letting me become a part of this operation, before you even realized it."

"That's all wonderful and all," Ryu interjects, hands still coiled into fists. "Ganondorf, just because you are part of their material is not enough reason for us to support them in what could be our destruction."

Ganondorf shakes his head again, chuckling lowly. "You simpletons will never know. Detroit cannot jump the levels of importance if we're unwilling to budge. I know none of you like me, I know this, don't worry. You all make it very clear, even you Fox, no matter how neutral you try to be. I am the outsider, not just because I am the youngest in terms of duration, but because I am also what you all fear," he lifts his head up to survey the rest of the council. "I am the change you are scared to embrace. As if one revolution is enough, that we've spilled enough blood to get to where we are! But, not nearly enough."

"Maybe you should write this all down in a book..." Wolf sneers.

"I am on the margins," Ganondorf continues, not interrupting his flow despite the brash and snarky interruptions. "Often those on the margins eventually merge their way to the center. Those on the center have to make room for us, willingly or otherwise. There's no middle ground, my fellow councilors, and it is a shame you cannot see it."

He turns to Corrin, advancing on her. Snake ruts forward some, but Robin stills him back at bay. Nothing about Ganondorf's movements have felt threatening, which may be their vilest sin if she thinks about it. It's one of Corrin's weaknesses, the constant underestimating of other people and their motives. For all her credit, she does not flinch, as he gets close to her, where she can smell his breath. It is the fragrance of roses, delicate, warm, and full of life. He lifts his right arm up, the metallic hand, to press it against the side of her face. Corrin shudders under his touch, the metal cold and chilling, precious, but tender all the same.

Corrin's heart starts to beat, and her gaze passes past Ganondorf to the council members, now all alert. Her blood freezes. When did all those strangers get there? She squints, and her thoughts are proven correct, that there are twelve people standing in the shadows, heads bowed down, hooded figures. Servants perhaps, one for each council member of the thirteen. She sees that there isn't one behind his, Ganondorf's, chair.

Ganondorf lowers his hand, eyes falling to the floor momentarily, and then back to the council. "President Corrin Etch and the retinue following her for Syrenet _will_ have grounds here in Detroit. The branch will thrive, and it shall grow by her side," and then all the strangers behind the other twelve chairs stepped forward so their hands were stilled on the backs of the chair. "Forever!"

With that exclamation, Ganondorf lifts his hands up, and then a shower of scarlet floods the council hall.

Corrin lets out a scream as the other members all lean forward and slump in their chairs. Behind them, each council member, the strangers all look up. She backs up, bumping into Robin and Snake who are jumbled as well. The strangers all look like Ganondorf, with the same exact facial structure, ginger beard, and gemstone into his head.

Ganondorf turns around, eyes triumphant. He murdered them all! Corrin's heart begins to pace faster, faster, _faster._ He steps forward again. "The city of Detroit is yours, Madam President!"

The doors on the other end bust open, and Corrin whirls around to see Mac standing in a storm of sawdust. His face is a wild mess of expressions, taking in the murdered council members, Ganondorf, and the rest of the collection. "Corrin!" the secret service agent screams, lunging forward. "Get away from her!" Mac bounds towards them.

As Mac goes to slam into Ganondorf, the half-Syrenet, half human councilor dissipates. It's the only word Corrin can think of as his body breaks into smaller cybernetic bits, cubes of code and digitalization that create elsewhere. Ganondorf now appears behind her and Robin, which elicits a scream from the vice president.

"Where will you run to Corrin?" Ganondorf taunts. "Your glory awaits here in the city!"

Thinking fast, Snake reaches inside his jacket pocket, revealing the knife. He lunges forward and drives the blade through Ganondorf's chest. It causes the council member to sputter, choking on his words, yet no blood appears from the mouth or the wound. Ganondorf looks down at the silver horn bursting through his chest, back at Corrin, and smiles.

Once again, he dissipates, this time back to the center, which Mac scrambles away from on all fours. This time, the other twelve copies of himself which he must've replicated appear by his side, one army, an entire council of thirteen Ganondorf Perishes. The blood from the murdered members starts to spill down the wall that had been the separation from the floor and them, pooling down to the tile.

When Ganondorf speaks, his voice is warped to be thirteen times stronger. "Your dynasty can begin, Corrin Etch!" he extends his hand out.

It is no question, for Corrin. With Robin, Snake, and Mac on her heels, she turns and runs away out of the council hall faster than anything in her entire life. As they run away, she sees Ganondorf frown, before tilting his head back and laughing, clutching his metallic hand to his face, which then all other twelve then mirror his exact movements.

Corrin cannot stop thinking about what she's just witnessed. One member, a Syrenet creation with a sinister past, killing the Council of Thirteen.

Has she caused the doom of everyone else by taking them to this forsaken place?

* * *

 **Well, there we are ladies and gentlemen! That was Chapter #29: Council of Thirteen, of Syrenet. I cannot believe I reached the end of it, in just three short days, at least eight to ten hours of typing, and fifteen thousand words later we are done, with a whole lot to discuss. Though the next chapter, the end of Arc III, will be momentous, this chapter here is to be the crucial one of the arc with the last main game player being presented, but we'll address it soon.**

 **I've taken some inspirations from the design of the Capitol from the Hunger Games and a few other modernistic cities when describing the newness that is Detroit, and its dark past. I must say that Corrin is my favorite character of the story, and perhaps my favorite character I've ever written thus far to this point in my writing life due to all of her strangeness. Though her and Robin have a complicated relationship, what is to happen in Arc 4 shall make this chapter and the relationships that have developed look like child's play, as this is the beginning of the end, my readers.**

 **Our last main character to be introduced is Ganondorf Perish, a council member of the thirteen in Detroit, who has actually been met before as you can tell via Robin's dreams, and if you have been paying attention, you'll know his relation to three other characters in this story. Any clues on who they are and their connection? What is Ganondorf's connection to the entirety of the story, as obviously he has had his hands in multiple bowls, and clearly remembers Corrin from some other past. Speculation more than welcome!**

 **Designing the council sections were also fun, as was scrounging the rosters of Smash characters where turning them into humans with even more outlandish traits was a particular joy. Their banter is meant to be insignificant, and they're all red herrings as I invested a bit of character into them to make you all think they matter, but they're all just stepping stones to a greater picture.**

 **The next chapter, the end of Arc III, is Chapter #30: His Greatest Error. Given the vast number of male characters we have, this could be anyone, but I'm interested in reading what you all think. Above all else, this is a chapter I would love to get a review from, to hear your thoughts. I'd mean the world to me if you were to review. I'll see you all again for the closing chapter of this arc, with only the final arc to go. Thank you for reading and making it to the end of this monstrous piece. I love you all so much! Have a great day! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	30. Chapter 30: His Greatest Error

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #30: His Greatest Error. Last chapter was a gargantuan 15.4k chapter concerning Corrin and her detail of Robin, Mac, and Snake meeting Detroit's Council of Thirteen, and one of the main members, Ganondorf, who has now murdered the other twelve, leaving the Syrenet crew in a sort of funk. This chapter... who could 'he' refer to? Review replies!**

 **Metroid-Killer- I like the name change, but for brevity's sake, I'm leaving your name the same. Yep, eloquent monster is something that is quite a paradox, but Ganondorf is eloquent in his words and a monster in his actions. Mac dislikes Roy because he is jealous that someone else likes Midna, if that has not been inherent. It seems everyone is focused on Roy, whereas no one is focused on him. What makes the redhead so special? I'm glad you like Ganondorf, it has been the longest I've ever waited to truly reveal a character to the reader audience.**

 **Mr. Squirtle6- I hope this was a good rouse out of your lapse of reading! The red herring had been hard to place, but I'm glad it worked. If Corrin didn't trust him, you shouldn't either, haha. Thank you for your kind words. I am happy about having written a chapter at such a magnitude, but there'll be a few more chapters in this arc that are blow dealers too. I hope this chapter suffices the end of Arc 3 for you.**

 **Guest- Yep, that is Ganondorf in the summary! But... who's the woman watching him? Someone we've met or someone we haven't? Any guesses? The arc isn't over - this chapter is the end - but it definitely is a great one to lead up to it. Ganondorf is a character that will seem pretty easy to understand on the outside, but like every character in this piece, they are much more complex. Thank you for the compliments!**

 **SeththeGreat- Man, I don't think I've** ** _ever_** **hooked you on liking a character that easily. Snake is definitely protective, he's admitted so many times how much he's got to take care of. Well... I won't be one to say who will and who won't die, but, that's anyone's guess. Who do you think will be dead by the end of the novel? Again, not the end of the arc, but it might not be easily topped as an penultimate ender either. Why do you think Corrin wouldn't have any idea what it is, and who would be the person at the head of it? Ganondorf currently** ** _is_** **the only cyborg right now... but will that stay the same?**

 **Derick- I'm glad you reviewed then! Man, you've been here since Day 1 haven't you? I'm surprised you like The Raven and the Lion so much, as I find it one of my weaker and easiest pieces to date, by far. While I see what you pointed out could be a discrepancy, just because someone** ** _sounds_** **or** ** _seems_** **on board with something doesn't mean they'll vote yes in the very end; I wanted to show a clear divide between the fact that Detroit's leaders were not willing to change.**

 **Retronym- Hahaha, it always ends up being my writing that makes you do interesting things. You once vomited almonds, I believe, because of a chapter in Infernum... Plastic Beach I think it was. With the council members, they were all humans who either added some sort of animalistic part to them, or were simply props like King Dedede. They weren't actually animorphs or anything of the kind. Glad it roused you back up!**

 **Man, great reviews you guys! This is the end of Arc 3, the Chicago Game, and man, hasn't it been a wild ride? It's taken me a super long time to write this arc, which I apologize, but there's only ten chapters left after this and the story is finished ya'll. Holy crap. Enjoy Chapter #30: His Greatest Error.**

* * *

The hiss of a teapot rouses Mac from his sleep on the kitchen table, the secret service agent launching upwards in a quiet shout of surprise. It frightens Robin, who is doing a crossword puzzle in her own chair across the table from him. Snake is at the counter, making tea, which Corrin had requested quite snappily. It's been seven hours since the murder of the Council of Thirteen, and Ganondorf's face and creepy smile still sits inside Mac's head. He'll never get the face out of his consciousness, whenever he closes his eyes, for as long as he lives. The hiss of the teapot reminds him of the sound Ganondorf's body made when he disassembled himself away from Snake's injury and reassembled himself in the front of the hall.

Everyone else in the retinue had other plans to do, it seemed, leaving Mac and the other three to let their thoughts and discussion go everywhere else. Corrin sits at the head of the table, tapping her nails against the oak wood surface. Her face is curled in a frown, her brow burrowed together in a pensive state. There's so much to dissect at this point, with losing their only potential ally. Mac is unable to figure out how Snake and Robin are acting so calmly about the whole ordeal; he certainly knows there'll be nightmares in his sleep of ginger haired psychopathic cyborgs. It sounds like something out of a fantasy.

He jolts some more when Snake sets down saucers for the tea, the tea cups, and follows with pouring each of them a cup. Mac is still stuck reverberating in his state of uncertainty and doubt, and he is unsure how to get out of it. The FBI director sits at the opposite end of the table, mirroring Corrin, taking a swig of the tea. Corrin does follow suit, now stopping her tapping to go ahead and start biting the inside of her cheek.

Silence washes over them again, save for the pencil scratch marks on Robin's crossword puzzle. A constant, irritating, _scitch-scitch._

"What do we do now?"

It is Snake that pops the question, which has been certainly sitting on everyone else's mind. Three pairs of eyes flash towards the brunette, but given all that's happened today, it is the least startling to Snake, who simply sits back in his chair with his arms crossed.

"I don't know..." Corrin says, and this is the first time Mac has ever seen their commander-in-chief look this distressed over something. Her normally silver colored hair seems to be whitening at the roots, as if this morning is dragging her down. The lines on her face are sunken in deeper than usual, and the woman's eyes dart around the corner, as if the maniac could just appear out of thin air. "I honestly don't know..."

Robin sets down her pencil, not saying anything, head focused on the table, but Mac can tell that she's thinking too. They're all thinking the same thing, but no real good answers are coming to a head. Mac scratches the back of his neck, picking at a scab. Ganondorf's face flashes behind his eyes for a moment, and he realizes that blood is the same color as the cyborg's head, which prompts him to end the scratching.

He's surprised when the vice president actually speaks. "What's awful is that they were going to vote against it either way..." she looks at the rest of them, eyes downcast and reflecting sadness. Whatever joy had been there previously, seemed to have been lost. "Only a few of them supported it as is. We would've been sent packing with tails between our legs."

Snake takes a second sip of his tea, thumbing the cup around the saucer with enough strength for it to slide on the saucer's edge. "Can we give the man credit for removing the opposition?" He makes a face after finishing his statement; that did not come out right, and there's no way in hell he's going to ever give Ganondorf any sort of semblance of credit for anything.

"He murdered them..." Corrin's voice is impossibly soft. " _Then_ proceeded to let us-"

"We have his permission, don't we?"

"Permission?" Mac retorts, giving Snake a _what for_ type of look. "You want to have that madman's give to do as we please? He could very well murder us tonight if he pleases!"

"He isn't even a man," Robin points out. "He's half-human... half-"

"Half Syrenet." Corrin doesn't look up as she says that. "Our work has somehow created him. I don't know how or when that would've happened. I've _never_ heard of any kind of program dealing with human experimentation. Have you?" she asks her vice president. Robin shakes her head in dissent, followed by Snake's gaze dropping to the floor. "Someone or some group used our technology and created a breathing cyborg monster..."

"Did you hear what he said?" Mac remembers, and the thought brings a pit of sickness to his stomach, a crippling seed filled with the foulness of the Earth rotting his insides. "That I'm not the only one...?"

"That there'd be more like him out there?" Corrin's face loses all color.

" _Or_ that he's somehow planning on making more," Snake buts in, raising a hand from the desk. The last thing the president of the United States of America needs to do is panic. Panic will bring them nowhere. "Which can be stopped."

"What _do_ we do?" Mac asks the question again, frowning. There's only two options. Run and never look back, or stay and do what needs to be done.

He watches as Corrin takes the time to think of an answer. He has never seen her struggle so heavily with a decision in her life, as it must bring her physical pain to relent having lives be possibly lost to this dying and doomed cause that is causing everyone to struggle. Mac wonders what it must be like to be in such a position of power. It's unbelievable to find himself where he is now. Once, he had been just another highschool student like everyone else at one point, trying to find his way in the world. His ambitions prove to be too much and he reworks his life for what could possibly make sense. Boxing sounds like a good avenue, and so he takes it. It earns him a few gold medals and some trophies, but he finds out that the 'good' life is not the 'good' life but the life of regret. He becomes a security guard, and somehow he's elevated to the seat of the White House in only a matter of a few years out of his retirement as a boxer... how the times have changed.

Out of the four situated at the table, he knows his opinion is the least that matters. Who listens to the Secret Service on opinions and matters that he's only just been concerned with? He's uncertain if there's even an answer.

Corrin resumes tapping on the desk, and although Mac had not been in the room till the very end when the cardinal streams danced on the carpeted floors, he could hear inside, and it is Fox's gavel all over again. _Down, down, down, down, down_ it falls. _Down, down_ it falls. _Loud, loud, loud_ is Ganondorf's laugh in his head.

"We will stay..." she says at arm's length, having given it a moment's thought.

" _Stay?"_ Though Mac knows it had been either a fight or flight sort of response, he's still taken aback by the notion.

"There's nothing better to do," Robin laments, shrugging. "We've come all this way..."

"Just continue like nothing's happened?" Snake raises an eyebrow. Mac can tell that he's wanting to press an argument, but something is reigning in his tongue.

"Like nothing happened." Corrin's gaze hardens, her figure rising up somewhat from the crumpled exterior he had seen earlier in the conversation.

"Do we tell the others?" Mac finds himself asking.

It hadn't even occurred to him that there were others to consider. Shulk, Ike, Pit, Midna, Roy, and Lucas had no idea what had transpired. As far as Mac is aware, Ike is at the hospital with Marth still looking over his condition and would be back by the morning. Roy is out for a run, which Mac is happy to have the redhead off the premises for the time being. Shulk, per usual, is engrossed in some novel in his room, Pit hell bent on seeing what's wrong with his automated army, and Midna snuggled on Mac's bed in a nap. None of them know of the danger that resides in the city. His blood runs cold, momentarily, at the thought of Ganondorf killing Roy elsewhere in Detroit, purely because the cyborg can.

"No," Corrin answers decisively. "Not right now, at least. There's already enough at stake that can cause us problems. We keep it a secret, so they don't worry."

"What if Ganondorf tries attacking someone else in the group?" Robin's face of motherly concern comes out full fledged in her question.

"He wouldn't dare." the president's voice wavers in that response, but it is enough to somewhat put the vice president at ease. Shakily, Robin announces she is going to go get a shower, seemingly ending the conversation at hand.

The trio left sit in a solitude of inward thought, where Mac's mind runs like a treadmill. Syrenet is going to stay in Detroit and try to resurrect a branch in the new country, with a mad cyborg on the loose who could kill any of them at a moment's notice, and that there still is a rebel army out there trying to uproot the Syrenet branch from the ground up, destroying it in the process. Snake finishes his tea, which Mac realizes he hasn't even touched it. Corrin draws her seat back from the table, saying with a rather resigned air to herself that she is going to sit out on the terrace and watch the sunset. She comments that she hasn't seen a sunset in some time without being worried, and it looks like today is going to perpetuate that trend. Though she does not ask, it is implied, that Snake is to join her, which he does, stepping out with the silverette onto the terrace. Thus, consequently, Mac is left by his lonesome in the kitchen, with a full teacup and all the time in the world to twiddle his thumbs.

He thinks about joining Midna in his bed, but he's not tired, and he doesn't want to wake her or talk about the conversation he just had. Corrin's wishes is to keep the rest of the group in the dark, and unfortunately, it's what he must do. Given the usualness of how his mind connects, when he thinks of Midna, subsequently, Roy follows. The secret service agent forms a fist as the red hair of Roy Arcadia comes to view in his mind. All his life, Mac's known himself and has been told by a large number of people, to be exceptionally forgiving, kind, and a gentle-hearted soul. Where his dislike and contempt for the fellow Syrenet employee will come from, he's not sure.

Mac thinks of everything that he is. Strong, physically and mentally, quite the charmer if Midna is any indicator, and supremely jealous. He looks at Roy and tries wondering what there is to be jealous of the guy, and nothing comes to mind. Perhaps he's ticked off at how Syrenet is going and he has an easy scapegoat to direct all his troubles onto, which doesn't sound like an extremely bad idea, just a poor one. The brunette knows that Roy has had a tough time with the whole job, by flunking the test with Link Collins, and losing his AI Unit, Ness, which Mac never even had the chance to meet. Yet, something lingers, where Mac senses a sort of _'pity me'_ card that he finds absolutely deplorable.

You've been given a shit hand. Make the best of it instead. Don't sit in a puddle of your own piss and wonder why you're soaked and smell like urine. Don't get dealt a faulty situation and do nothing to fix it. Part of Mac's jealousy spurns from the fact that Midna draws herself towards Roy regardless. In the secret service agent's eyes, he views a relationship to a monogamous ordeal, one person with another person. No one else can be inserted into the picture, yet here comes the new guy that isn't even new - Mac is - which Midna is entirely obsessed over. He knows of their mutually shared past, but it hasn't crossed her mind it seems that the focus needs to be on Mac, and Mac sorely alone.

He laughs nervously to himself. What does Roy have over Mac? Nothing! What Roy does, Mac can do tenfold. Sure, the redhead can put up a good fight, recalling the drunken night brawl against some of the Midwestern rebels, and then the fight just two nights ago, going toe-to-toe with someone who looked like a general in the insurrection force. Then, look at the brunette, and multiply all of Roy's good points by ten, that's where Mac stands, and he won't deny it. Roy messes up his first mission on no one else's fault but his own, and it seems like, if Shulk's word of mouth is anything to go by, that Roy took a good week to moan and complain over the unfairness of the situation. Mac has been perfect to a T.

So, the record of confusion spins and spins in his head, as to what Midna is drawn towards to with this outsider that she's spoken to a handful of occasions. Yes, Roy is loyal beyond loyal, but so is Mac. Yes, Roy seems to be a nice guy, _but so is Mac._ Perhaps he'll never let go of it, he thinks, which seems to be more and more the case.

Mac takes a sip of the tea, swallowing it painfully. He's never particularly liked it's bitterness, which coupled with the fact that he's thinking of his least favorite person in Syrenet, it is as if the two were made for each other.

As he sets his cup down, something catches his eye. Across the kitchen is the open door to Corrin's room, having the largest room in the safehouse given her political position. Mac leans forward some more, craning his neck, making sure to not tip the chair over. The window on the far side of the wall in the room is open, where he swears that he saw a flash of blonde hair go whipping by. Mac sits back normal again, replaying the sight over again. It wouldn't have been Shulk, he deduces, given the hairstyle, which had been two blonde pigtails. He squeezes his eyes shut; Mac swears on the Holy Ghost he has seen that hairstyle before... recently in fact.

The realization hits him like a truck. _Chicago!_ A fighter, one of the leaders it looked like, who had traded blows with Midna, had two long, blonde fishtail braids. He stands up, hand going to the gun sitting in his waistband. After Ganondorf's spectacle this morning, he's not risking any chances. He gazes back at the terrace door where he can see Corrin and Snake sitting outside by their shadows pressed against the blinds. Mac ganders going to talk to them about what he just saw, but he decides against it. There could be an intruder in the house and he's the only one who can stop it. He can hear the praise now, in his head, as Corrin congratulates him for saving them, and Midna running into his arms, stealing a kiss for his bravery.

Mac steps into Corrin's bedroom. He knows it couldn't be Shulk, as Shulk's bedroom is on the opposite side of the house entirely, which is on the lower of the two floors. The only way up to the kitchen is a single staircase, and he knows he would've seen the Alpha commander perusing about on the upper floor to have passed by the open window. Mac is now in the middle of the room, not a sound to be heard except the curtains blowing in the breeze. He frowns. Everything feels wrong, just like when the rebels trounced upon them at the announcement. He lets out a labored breath.

The first thing he does is shut the window, now having drawn his gun out. Mac peeks into the bathroom; it is empty, and the bedroom save for himself his empty. He stops again in the middle. The door is shut. He frowns. Did he shut it walking into the room, in case there had been an intruder? He doesn't remember. Mac goes to open it, yet the handle won't budge. That draws him away from the door in a muted fear.

What is going on?

He yanks on the door handle. It would seem like a good idea to bust it down, but his shoulder is still injured from slamming all his weight into the door back at the Council's conference center. Shouting doesn't seem like something very reasonable either - Snake and Corrin sitting outside on the other side of the house would be difficult for them to try and hear him - and he isn't sure how far his voice would go outside. Mac examines the corners of the room, and sitting in one of the corners is a security camera. He jumps and waves wildly, only to stop when he realizes that the normal red light that indicates the camera is on is off, and he's lost when it comes to science and technology on how to possibly turn the security camera on.

The brunette clenches onto his gun tighter. Someone will come along; it isn't as if he is trapped in some cave somewhere with limited oxygen and no friends around him. He's locked into the president's room at their compound, which sounds much nicer than anything else. Mac gives the room one more glance, then his head snaps towards Corrin's desk.

Over in one of the corners, next to the window in fact, is a brown desk, nothing extravagant, and on top of it is Corrin's laptop, which is open and running. It seems to him that the papers and pens and other items on the desk are splayed in a mess of confusion and a clear sign of hurriedness. The thought causes his heart to pound in his chest.

 _Had someone sneaked into her room to look at important documents on her computer?_

The notion is too much for Mac to bear, and he scrambles over to the computer. He's only going to read the opening line of the document, he swears it by all that is holy. No other windows are open, no Internet searches in recent hours, and there hasn't been any indication of there being anything _deleted_ off of the computer. Perhaps he's seeing all of this in his head. He scans the document, reading it.

The top line, as follows, in large black letters, reads,

 **Fiora Roberts: Status and Details**

Mac pauses, locking his jaw. Where has he seen that name before? He's heard it passed around quite frequently, actually, among the Syrenet commanders, and then he connects the last name. Fiora is Shulk's dead wife; she died in the very same city as a matter of fact. His blood runs ice cold, and all of a sudden the gelid chill from before returns, this time stronger, and he shivers, despite the fact that the window had been shut. He continues to read, where the document is now entirely italicized for reasons he does not care to try and make sense of.

 _Let it be known, on this date, April 21st of 2092, Fiora Roberts has been terminated._

He recoils from the computer screen again. Terminated? That's a rather sharp choice of word, he muses. Usually if someone has been terminated, it's on the basis of something negative. Mac remembers hearing the story. Detroit rebels, Syrenet is sent in to stop it, things are looking up and all of a sudden Fiora Roberts is murdered in cold blood, her neck torn to shreds, limbs bent at awkward angles, and a cold metal rod that pokes slightly out of the small of her spine. Everything collapses, and now Mac finds himself in the lovely new wonderful country that is Detroit, even if it still goes by Detroit, Michigan.

"Terminated..." Mac echoes, the word a phantom on his lips.

 _Henceforth from today, Fiora is now to be known as a martyr for the Syrenet cause. All rumors and talks of other sorts of heresy are to be silenced; instead of the truth that Fiora has died betraying the Syrenet cause, she has died supporting the Syrenet cause against enemies in the West who'd harm its missive._

His brain begins to search again. Betrayal? What exactly _is_ Syrenet's missive, now that he dwells on it? Mac's mind goes to Shulk, given that the Alpha commander has taken the loss of his dearly beloved quite hard since the tragedy, from what looks to be three years ago, if he knows any sort of details concerning Fiora's death. What could she have done that would've been betrayed whatever mission Corrin had set-out? Self-sabotage is the first to come to Mac's mind.

There are other sentences thrown in the report, such as all the gruesome details about the state of decay Fiora's body had been in when she had been found, all of the usual statistics given out like her height, weight, eye color, hair color and other miscellaneous information. Mac glazes over them, scrolling downwards through the document, which he notes, is nearly fifty pages.

It seems that time melds together and he has forgotten why he had even entered the room in the first place. At the very end of the document is a signature by Corrin, which is what snaps Mac out of his stupor.

 _With a heavy heart, Syrenet has lost one of its staunchest defenders to a sick and absolutely corruptive monster in Detroit. I should have never had sent her to try and fight the rebels back. She was in no way, shape, or form ready to do any kind of fighting having been in the last trimester of her pregnancy. It is a shame I will hold with me until the day I die. Fiora's name will not be smudged out of history because of some cyborg tyrant in that foul, wretched city. Ganondorf will not drag Syrenet's name in the mud. I forbid it._

 _~ With regards, Corrin Etch, President of the United States of America_

As he comes to the closing of the document, Mac pushes himself away from the desk. Mac leans back into the screen, eyes widening. "Cyborg tyrant... Ganondorf..."

Did Corrin actually know about Ganondorf prior to this morning? Mac looks around the room again, the hair on his neck standing still. He quickly scrolls back up to the beginning of the document, leaving everything back to its exact position.

He places his gun back into his holster, turning to leave.

Mac's blood once more turns to ice as the door opens, as if it had never been locked in the first place. When he steps out of her bedroom, still trying to keep his face as impasse as it could be with what he had just read, he finds that Corrin is back at the kitchen table, her back to him.

The secret service agent stares at the silverette with an all consuming gaze filled with fire.

What is Corrin Etch not telling him?

* * *

 _BEEP. BEEP. BEEP._

The monotonous beeping coming from the heart monitor every few seconds is the only reason Ike hadn't fallen asleep yet, stuck in Marth's hospital room. He stands over his best friend's bed, trying to get him to wake if he can, or if that doesn't work, he paces. The man remembers the doctor's words, " _Ike, son, it's a coma. Marth will wake when he wants to wake._ "

Yesterday afternoon plays over and over in his head. All the screaming, all the yelling. Ike recalls roughly dragging the outspoken crowd member away, sternly telling the haggard looking fellow to stay put or else. At this point, the bluenette sees that there are masses of people starting to walk up to the square, in groups of ten, twenty... and that's when he sees the first pistol jutting out the back of someone's t-shirt. When the first bullet rings out into the air, chaos ensues, and the man that Ike had removed from the crowd is immediate to jump up and try firing pointe blank into the commander's chest.

He doesn't blink an eye as the other man collapses to the sidewalk from a snapped neck, and Ike draws his own pistol from his pocket. Chicago police force members are swarming into the area, a sea of navy and cerulean fighting against an onslaught tide of camo green and dirty brown. Occasionally he hears the firing of a rocket, which must be coming from Shulk's Syrenet suit, or a glimpse of Roy and Midna's scarlet hair that matches the blood being spilled everywhere. When the smoke clears, and when the last stragglers either run away, surrender, or die on their feet, Ike rejoins the group.

Shulk, Mac, and Pit's faces are to be the warning signs that Ike does not recognize, and when he sees, finally sees what one of the rebel traitors had done to his best friend, it breaks him. The commander collapses to his knees, head thrown upwards to the sky, and he screams. The burst of noise is harsh on his throat, and he feels his vocal cords aching, his muscles vibrating underneath the strain, but Ike unleashes a fury that he's never experienced before. Following shortly after that are the tears, blinding and hot, where his vision muddles into a stain glass window of emotion he cannot understand.

All of this, all of the safety precautions, the entire Chicago trip has been for nothing now that Marth is severely injured, and Ike knows it.

It is all supposed to be that since the ramifications of Oklahoma City, Corrin is not going to put Marth in a position where he can be thrown into the line of fire. The only person to not leave Chicago unscathed is the commander of Beta Squad, a violation of the president's promise. Whenever Ike looks at her now, he doesn't see their fearless commander in chief. He sees a liar who only looks out for herself and that's all, someone who does not even _try_ to keep her word, and one who can't tell when the ship is sinking until it has already sunk.

Ike is mad. He's more than mad, he's furious. An anger that stirs in his soul and spills over the edges of the Earth violently, an eruption of pain and sadness and suffering. Why do things have to be the way they are? He does not understand the notion that bad things happen, which is ironic given his tragic past. He knows that everyone in Syrenet wishes he'd be with them at their new location, but what matters to him above all else is his wounded best friend currently lying upright on his bed.

Marth's eyes are closed, and at a certain glance, if Ike tilts his head a specific way, makes it look like the other bluenette is simply sleeping peacefully. The body is stilled, not a single hair on the man's head out of place, and his body stunningly clean. However, on the inside, a body shattered in two, a system trying to sustain itself and keep itself alive. That thought disturbs Ike.

It almost comes to him like a joke, Ike laughs, when thinking back to the conversation the two of them had one evening all the way back when Roy had been the fresh meat of the Syrenet crowd, where Marth spills his deepest fears, and Ike nods along, not _truly_ understanding them, but still caring nonetheless. He had been right all along, Ike realizes. His best friend is terrified of failing on this mission in ensuring that Syrenet is a success in Detroit, worried that some sort of fate will fall upon him, and it is wrapped up in a neat bow in a present for Marth; a silver bullet, a damn perfect silver bullet.

The time is nearing seven at night, with the sun starting to recede beneath the horizon, and Ike yawns. It's been a good forty hours since he's lost got some actual sleep, too afraid to shut his eyes lest it be the end of his friend's mortal ticking clock. There's too much on the line for the commander of Charlie squad to give up now; he has not gone on this long journey with Marth to have it end the way it is setting up to be finalized. In an hour, he tells himself, he will go to the headquarters location and rest. There's business in Detroit, and whether Ike wants to deal with Corrin - which, at the moment, he does not - is another beast he'll tackle entirely; his devotion is to Syrenet, which extends to everyone in it, including the president he is so destined to try and hate.

As the clock winds another hour, and where the sky has gone completely black, Ike stands to get up and leave, a hand resting on the side of the door, one foot standing on tile, the other on carpet, when...

"Ike..." Marth says feebly.

The commander is seized by a jolt of electricity, Ike nearly falling over in shock. He rushes back into the room, straight to Marth's bedside. "Marth!" he exclaims, his face contorted in an expression that he can't determine whether to settle on happiness or sadness. His best friend has his eyes open, but the lids still seem heavy and flutter, as if Marth is incapable of actually keeping his eyes fully open. He outstretches his arms, like he is trying to sit up, but the bullet has taken away part of his spine, leaving the rest of his lower half past the hips entirely unusable.

A look of weary confusion passes over Marth's face. "I- I can't get up..."

Ike places a gentle hand on his shoulder, trying to ease him back down towards the softness of the bed, to get his mind off of the injury. "You should stay lying down..."

"I- I can't feel my legs," Marth says again, this time his voice soft as a leaf falling to the ground. His expression distorts to anger, but an anger backed up by a complete upheaval of pain. "Why- why can't- Ike... why can't I feel my legs...?"

The look nearly kills the other bluenette, so much so that Ike has to actually look at the problem area than rather in his best friend's direction. He doesn't want to face the tears and brow crinkled in confusion, and the diamond lakes reflecting pity and sorrow and suffering, Ike simply cannot stand it. "You were shot, Marth. Do you remember? Yesterday, in Chicago?"

He can see the gears in Marth's head trying to work for the betterment of him, to try and piece the puzzle together, perhaps create a foggy recollection of events before it all shatters, but the picture is unclear, there are bits missing, and it leaves the commander more frustrated than anything else. "Shot? I was... shot?"

"Yes, Marth," Ike nods.

"Why-" Marth swallows painfully hard. "Why can't I feel my legs?"

The gentle hand returns to being placed on the shoulder, and Ike tightens his grip. Not hard enough to cause any semblance of pain, given that Marth's nerves everywhere else in his body must be kicking in overtime to where even a pining needle must feel like lava pouring down his back, but one to reassure him that he's there. "The bullet severed your spinal cord. I'm- I'm sorry." His voice cracks at the end, and he has to look away again, shamefully.

"Spinal cord...?" Marth echoes, and then looking upwards at his best friend. "I won't be able to walk again, will I?"

"Paralyzed from the waist down." Even Ike saying the words is like spitting up sulfuric acid. It burns from the very inner core of his soul, disgraceful and sour tasting. He sits back down by the bedside, this time going to hold Marth's hand. It is a mutual feeling of brotherly love, a sign that they will be by each other's sides in the end even when the sky goes black and the heart begins to _drum, drum, drum_ as the echoes of a failing sunrise ride the coattails of sulfur and ash clouds.

Ike cannot imagine that he'd have ever lived to see the day where he'd look at another friend in the hospital, dying. _"But he's not dying!"_ Ike yells at himself. He has to remind himself this. If he forgets, then he doesn't know what'll happen to Marth's spirit. He recalls what Marth had said to him on the plane, after landing in Chicago. His panic attack, and what that must've meant. All the trauma Marth had already gone through, and this last leg of the journey seems to be going even worse.

He's already - Ike, that is - watched someone else fall off life support, his best friend who succumbed to injures from a fatal bear attack. The beast's snarl is engraved in the bluenette's head, where the foamed maw is tightened back in a growl, the pink flesh of his friend's arm hanging from the bear's mouth, a hide as dark as the abysses located in the deepest ocean... and now the bear transforms into a thirty something year-old man, dressed in khakis and a button down, with a gun pointed directly at Marth's back, and that there is no crueler monster in the world than a human.

Humans are despicable. Humans are selfish. Humans are the scraps left after nature has gone in and cleaned everything through, because the humans are the fleas and maggots who only join the fray once rot has set in. Humans are everything Ike hates about society and life, and of course he has to be in the line of work where he must deal with rotten and foul men and women that are the reason why two plus two no long equals four, but five.

In the lapse of his thoughts, Marth has started to cry, if almost quite pathetically. Quiet sobs, nothing outlandish or attention seeking, really, but a gentle release of emotion. Ike leans forward, hand hesitating above Marth's face, but he relents anyways, wiping a tear away. The crystalline drop is flung to the floor, splattering with a hiss on the carpet.

Marth hiccups, gaze staring straight at the ceiling. "I want to die, Ike." The other man seems incapable of answering back, too stunned to say anything. The two lock eyes now. "Remove me from life support. Stick air in my veins. I don't want to live on this Earth anymore."

"You don't mean that," Ike assures him.

"I can't walk," Marth responds, the brightness in his persona that once had been there, gone. A husk, a black husk now remains. "How can I be in Syrenet if I can't walk? How can I fight for this country if I can't walk? What am I going to do... sit around on some porch in a wheelchair overlooking the country side, sipping coffee? I. Can't. Walk Ike!" The commander tries leaping forward out of the bed, but he only gets half an inch up before an estranged cry breaks from his throat, the pain rising from the half of his body that can still feel. Ike lowers him back down gently, and more the same Marth begins to cry again.

"I'm going to get revenge on the people who did this to you," Ike says, gripping hands with his best friend once more. The crying ceases as soon as it begun, and Marth looks back, his face unreadable. The commander of Charlie squad grits his teeth, tightening his hold. "The sick bastards who did this to you are going to get what happened to you tenfold, Marth, I swear it. Those Midwestern _fuckers,_ " he knows he just swore, but it doesn't bother him, "Are going to wish they died back in Chicago. I will protect you. I promise."

Marth swallows hard, and his eyes fall to the bed sheets, before he turns his neck to face the other wall. His emotion does an entire 180, where now there is bitterness and scorn.

"Don't lie to me, Ike, and don't lie to yourself. No one can protect me any more."

It near about shatters Ike's heart as Marth says it.

Has this entire trip been one huge error?

* * *

The stars are out in full swing tonight. The night sky dances in a twinkling, disco ball glow as the balls of fire light years away flamenco in snappy cardinal dresses, constellations clapping out rhythms and beats. It is the second time now, on the trip, that Roy goes to the roof of the building to look at the night sky. However, unlike before, he does not lay on the shingled roof to cry his eyes out in frustration. He is simply out there to relinquish in the feeling that there may be peace. Nothing foul has followed the Syrenet crew from Chicago, which is a relief in itself. Roy cannot think about the last time he has had another night like this since joining Syrenet, where it is just him and the world. No one is barking orders, no one is threatening him. No one is daring to shoot him for not complying. All is well, and if all is well, Roy can live.

He senses that the compound is subdued, but cannot place a finger on it as to why. Though Shulk, Pit, and Midna are being their usual selves, he looks over at the group who had visited the Council of Thirteen - which they strangely distance any conversation from heading towards, Roy notices peculiarly - and from them emanates tension. Locked shoulders, a tightened ribcage, a wry smile, and hands constantly clenching as if they're feeling out for a weapon.

The sounds of the battle in downtown Chicago yesterday linger in his mind. Zant's horrified face as he stabs the knife through his back is an expression Roy shall never forget, but on the contrary, not because the face is terrifying, but because it is beautiful. Roy finds it beautiful that someone has died by his hand, that he's proven his worth. He's killed a commander of a rebel army trying to overthrow Syrenet! How can that not be congratulatory? He leaves Zant's corpse where it had fallen, spitting on it for good measure.

After being backhanded by Link, and humiliated by the same group of forces just a few nights prior to yesterday's fight, Roy is proud of himself to have a shed of glory. Then it all comes crashing down when Pit runs over with Marth's injured body in his arms, and every euphoric feeling that is rushing through the redhead's veins comes to a grinding halt, blood turning to ice, and his heart hammering faster and faster in his chest than it ever has before. The swinging lights of a hospital's interior dance above his head as they rush down a hall, take an immediate right, and nearly throttle Marth's doctor for not providing answers.

Corrin and Shulk's argument in the hallway as the two battle on their position with heading to Detroit. Though Roy has never met Fiora, he's had enough time spent with Shulk to know that this meeting that had been set up with the council is breaking all barriers in whatever relationship the couple had shared. Despite not wanting to admit it, at the very least not out loud, Roy is neutral to the whole thing.

Pink and purple shadows from the motel's sign pass over his face as he reads a novel in the dark in his room, knees hugged to his chest, the paperback resting squarely on his elevated thighs. The sheets cling lightly to his skin, coolness passing over his toes and bunching up at the ends of the bed. All the light from the outside lands in pockets over by the air conditioner, and the room is silent save for the flipping of a page to the next as he consumes the novel in his head.

Outside on the roof, Roy enjoys his silence. Though he does not necessarily prefer being left alone, there is nothing wrong with having some time to yourself. Occasionally he'll look up to see the Detroit skyline, which is bustling and surrounded by a halcyon halo. The skyscrapers are ladders to heaven, with their chrome plating and their translucent windows that glitter under the moonlit sky. Sounds of cars honking and train horns rattling are cacophonous on an otherwise peaceful and undisturbed air save for the commonplace chirp of a cricket. A breeze blows through the trees, and Roy remains in his place of happiness and solitude.

Another cacophonous, harsh noise fills the air, but this time it is a lot closer than Roy would like. He frowns, tilting his head to the side, arms behind his head, as he looks over. To get up on the roof, he took the ladder from the garage and placed it against one of the sides of the compound, climbing up it. Each metal rung creaked and croaked, so much so that Roy fears he may fall and snap his neck, but he makes it to his destination safely. Someone else is hoping to join him on the roof.

He is surprised to see that it is Madame President Corrin Etch herself peeking her head over the side of the roof. That would've been someone on the very far end of the list of people he'd expect to see wanting to join him on the roof.

"There you are," Corrin exhales breathlessly, seemingly winded from her not too arduous climb. Roy rolls his eyes. A person in power needs to be stronger at doing things that barely require any sort of exertion. "Everyone else seems to have gone to bed. Couldn't find you."

"A nice little hideaway," Roy responds, before frowning, finding it quite silly after he says it. He is literally laying on top of the house's roof. Anyone could see him if they were to just walk outside. He is having deja vu of the night he laid out with Midna, but instead he traded one abrasive ginger for an abrasive silverette who very well could hand him a pink slip.

"You mind if I join you?" she asks.

"No ma'am, not at all!" he says hurriedly, scooting over. What else could he say? He very well couldn't tell the president to bugger off. Technically speaking, Roy is capable of saying something in that disrespectful manner, but the repercussions may entitle him getting pushed off the roof and actually breaking his neck this time. He does find it odd that she is actually wanting to sit with him, instead of simply checking on his position.

"Do not call me ma'am," Corrin corrects him. "I'm not old yet, nor do I plan on it?"

" _Does that mean you plan on dying young?"_ Roy wants to ask, but he bites his tongue so hard he almost leaks copper. Then, aloud, "Yes ma-" he stops himself, almost using the same exact word she had forbade him from using. "Of course, Corrin."

The president sits down, crisscross with her elbows on her knees, leaned forward. This is perhaps the most relaxed Roy has ever seen her, if that is even possible. Corrin's emerald eyes catch a bit of the light reflecting from the city, and Roy is taken aback a bit by just how beautiful she looks. Flawed as the woman may be, depending on whom you ask, he cannot deny that there are hidden gems tucked away in far places that no one could ever reach.

His mind thinks of Midna, momentarily, but it is a fleeting thought. She has Mac. She will always have Mac. Mac will always have her, and that's how it is meant to be. Nothing will ever change that.

He gives a haphazard look at Corrin, still trying to deduce what exactly has brought the commander in chief up to the roof to spend any single iota of her time with the newest employee to join the Syrenet squad. Though he has not asked her directly, let alone had any sort of true conversation with the woman now thinking about it in hindsight, Roy has a feeling that their silverette queen is not all too keen on the man that is Roy Arcadia for his poor performances in times past.

Corrin leans forward some more, as if entranced by the glow of the city in front of them. "It's beautiful, isn't it? The night?"

"Yes, I think so. I wouldn't be out here otherwise," Roy answers, then mentally kicking himself. Less snark would be a good idea, _is_ a good idea.

"And then it is ruined by all of this fakery," she continues, her hands making a gesture at the skyscrapers. "This entire city. All of it, Roy, all of it is fake. Detroit is an island with storms raging on all sides. The people are fake. The roads. The buildings. The riches... and they have the gall to call themselves the best city _and_ country in the world... the nerve."

"I don't know about any of that," he admits. "I've never given it a thought." Roy is wary. What angle is she trying to play at here? He currently has no idea.

"Why do you think they have the illusion set up?" Corrin looks back at him, her gaze seizing him like a lasso, locking Roy's bones up. "Why they present this illusion of grandeur because deep down they're all fake?"

He shrugs lamely. "I can't say."

Her face changes into that of a smug smirk. "Because they know that if the world saw them for the fakers they truly are, then there'd be no point in their existence," Corrin's tone of her voice makes it sound as if she's given the most inspirational quote of mankind, by the way the words float upwards, mocking the cacophony of the Detroit nightlife with a more mellifluous sound on her part. "We all exist to be fake, one way or another," she says, looking down at her hands, before her face turns into that of a grimace. "I hate fake people."

Roy raises an eyebrow. "Why's that?"

"Because all they will ever do in their life is die," Corrin explains. "I don't know if there is anything beyond what this world holds, but sure as shit do not want to waste my time lying every chance I get just to save some skin. You can see right through them. _I_ can see right through them. You want to know why?" Roy does not respond to the question. All he's brought so far is the mundane 'I don't know' or 'it doesn't interest me' sort of answers. Corrin's lip curls back to that disgusting, awful, nasty smirk. "I can see them because I'm fake myself. It's how you get by in this business, Roy."

Roy nods, but that's all he feels that he can do without showing any more sort of idiocy. This is how the night continues for he and the president, where he can sense some sort of bond breaking through, nearly like the crown molding of a newborn.

However, along the line, as he and Corrin discuss fakeness and the people that associate themselves with it, Roy's skin bristles with an emotion of fear. Not a paralyzing fear, but one that is effective enough, where he can see the gleam in Corrin's eyes when he says something quite profound, or the distaste when he is unable to rise to the occasion.

It is all a test, somehow, somewhere buried beneath the allegories and smart sayings.

And Roy Arcadia feels like he has messed up in more ways than one.

* * *

Mac's bare feet are cold as he walks from his shared bedroom with Midna over to the bathroom. The compound is quiet as everyone else has finally gone off to bed. It leaves the secret service agent up, with the TV in his room on the lowest volume settings so he can watch the news while Midna sleeps in the other bed opposite his. The time is nearing midnight, with an apparently big day ahead of them as Corrin announces at dinner. Ike walks through the front door to hugs and questions all around a little bit after ten PM, immediately retiring to his own bed, which has Marth's lying right next to his, left empty.

At one point, before the clock rounds out to _12:00,_ Mac turns the TV off. He has yet to shower for the evening, since he has always, even as a little boy, despised showering in the morning no matter the time of day. It must've been a familial saying that he's forgetting in the lull of things, as his father downs cups of coffee and grins behind his mustached grin that a morning shower weakens the morning wood or something.

Leave it Mac Sarasota's father to be the idiot of the family.

He steps into the bathroom, which is adjacent to he and Shulk's rooms. Mac flicks the light on, covering his eyes as the bright halcyon glow fills the bathroom. It is nothing too fancy, a simple granite countertop, plain one toned shower curtain, and the shower itself all tile. He removes his clothes, turning on the water. He has to have a hot shower, having been used to always having warm baths as a kid. There are some patterns he simply cannot break even at such an age where patterns need to be broken away from.

Mac looks at his naked body in the mirror, running fingers smoothly over his muscles on his chest and abs, taking in his form. It is not some sort of self-sufficient gloating, or looking at the body of a paragon. While he will admit that he is gifted down south for the average man, all of the good work comes from above in the build and form of his back and shoulders, biceps, and neck. His skin is smoothed and pale, yet a hint of a tan runs underneath. His body is a sign of hard work paying off, that all of his life builds to being healthy, and him being healthy means he can properly defend the United States of America.

By the time he is done checking his body, the water is warm now. Mac steps into it, letting the streams of steaming water hit his back and run against his spine. He shudders momentarily, despite being surrounded in warmth, once more at the idea of Marth's snapped spine and all the bone bits flying in the air followed by a splash of crimson blood.

His mind dances from topic to topic in his head, though he utters no sound. He thinks back to the document he found on Corrin's computer under compromising circumstances. Is it treason that he's read the document? He cannot quite tell. The words flow back to him. Fiora's betrayal. Ganondorf's name being in the ending paragraph. The words 'terminated', 'betrayal', 'traitor', 'cyborg', 'Detroit', and 'martyr' all seem to have a connection that Mac cannot still for the life of him piece together.

There is no way Corrin is lying, the look of shock and disturbance that flickers across the normally stoic woman's face is enough to haunt Mac's dreams at seeing the president become so discombobulated at anything in the world. She is Corrin Etch! She's above it all! She's _supposed_ to act as if nothing bothers her, and if she fails at that, then every other domino will collapse too. So is the way of the world, Mac figures.

He grabs a bottle of shampoo, pouring a good sized puddle of turquoise liquid into his hands to then lather through his hair. His fingers dig into his scalp, white suds appearing in the gaps of his fingers which tickle his skin. The water is warm still, and he's enveloped in a hug of serenity and peace, his muscles tightening and loosening up under the bombardment of heat.

Mac places his head underneath the faucet, loving the feeling as the soap runs with the current, pouring down his body. He has always liked that feeling, ever since he had been boy showering by himself. It is an enjoyable chill that glides over his front to his navel, down his spine to his hips and the tingle in the back of his neck that brings the point forward.

He turns the water off, stepping out of the shower. The brunette wipes down the mirror, hating that it always has to get foggy after a shower. Yes, Mac understands the rules of science and steam and condensation and evaporation and all of that junior year in highschool material that he has yet to use in his life since then, but that is irrelevant to him at this point and time. He looks perfectly clean in the mirror, which is always the point of taking a shower. Mac exhales, pushing his shoulders back, the feeling of euphoria rushing through his veins as his bones crack. The elixir of life is contained in that shower.

His clothes are in a bundle on the floor, which he'll grab and try to throw in the hamper all the way from the bathroom to near the foyer where the compound's hamper sits. Mac has yet to dry off, his body still dripping wet. Drops _splish, splosh_ on the tile, ghastly echoing sounds against the white walls, in the eerily quiet, nearly too quiet house.

Something behind him creaks... the door perhaps, which causes Mac's blood to freeze. Someone is standing behind him, there has to be.

Before he can say anything, a gloved hand clamps down on the front of his mouth, the assailant pulling Mac back. He tries to throw the intruder off, but for some reason Mac is unable to do so. His face burns, not only under the struggle, but the realization that he's nakedly fighting off someone in the bathroom! Mac tries shouting for help, but the glove that he is currently biting into blocks all the sound.

The cold air hits his body, and Mac has never felt like wanting another shower more than he has in this instance. It nips at him, feeling like needles. He struggles some more, but the attacker wrenches both of his arms behind his back, Mac tautly pressed up against whomever this stranger is.

He hears their hot breath on his neck, a sharp inhale, and Mac tries breathing through his nose. The person leans in, so close that he could probably lick Mac's neck of the water dripping off.

"Operation Glass Ceiling sends its regards, Mac Sarasota," the voice whispers.

The air is so cold, the air _is_ so cold. Mac wants the warmth, anything but enduring the cold.

He trades the cold air for the cut cold bite of a knife.

The last thing he thinks of is Midna's smile before the blade slashes his throat like wrapping paper, the cold chill of his own blood pouring down his immaculate clean skin.

Mac's body turns icy.

His eyes shut, and he gives his last breath.

The knife finishes sawing.

* * *

 **Well... well, there we have it. The end of Arc 3, ending entirely on the death of Mac Sarasota. I am sorry for any of those who may have liked him, but out of everyone in the cast, I found him to be the most expendable. And, besides, it's been a good while (Chapter 17) since we've had a major character die, and someone needed to go.**

 **That was Chapter #30: His Greatest Error, everyone, the end of Arc 3. Man, I can't believe that Arc 4 is next, like holy smokes you guys that is unfreaking believable! But let's discuss the chapter first. Did Mac actually see something in the window of Corrin's room, or was he hallucinating something? And any speculation on the contents of the document he found on Corrin's computer? Why would Fiora be a traitor to Syrenet, and where does Ganondorf fit into all of this you think?**

 **It ends out to be that 'His' is referring to Mac, and his greatest error is curiosity killed the cat. I had planned a death at the end of this arc as is, such as the red herring from last chapter where you need to be reminded that these characters aren't invincible. Though I thought of doing something a little Hitchcock inspired, this is where I ended up deciding to lay down his demise.**

 **I hope you saw the parallels between Marth and Ike's hospital scene to Roy and Midna's. These are two men broken by the system around them, injured devastatingly, and feeling extremely sorry for themselves. Do you think Ike will be able to keep his promise? Their relationship in this story is one of my favorites - gee, I say that about _all_ of them - as a friendship near siblinghood for them is something I've never written.**

 **With Corrin and Roy's section, originally it was going to be Roy and Midna, where a drunk Midna tries to have sex with Roy on the roof, but I decided to cut this entire idea out and replace it with something a bit more poignant as A. that'd ruin the entire tone of the chapter, B. be entirely out of Midna's character in the essence of where her and Roy's character arcs are meant to be headed, and C. probably not appropriate for a T rating as is.**

 **This arc is longer than Arc 2 by a good 20k words, and man, we've crossed the 230k word threshold which is insane! As usual, questions for the arc!**

 **1) Who was your favorite character this arc and why? Least favorite and why? **2) Favorite part of the arc and why? Least favorite and why?  
3) Favorite withstanding chapter of the arc?  
4) Any predictions for the rest of the story, now that we're at Arc 4?****

 ** **I cannot wait to start Arc 4. Chapter #31: Duration of Dust will be coming out most likely sometime next week after I get all of my other stories updated as well. Please review and let me know what you thought, I'd be dying to hear from you! Thank you all for reading and I hope you have an amazing day! I love you all so much! Bye!****

 ** **~ Paradigm****


	31. Chapter 31: Duration of Dust

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #31: Duration of Dust. I know it has been a damn fortnight, but good lord the end of senior year has been upon me and it has been difficult trying to balance five theater shows, four stories, my grades, four AP exams, and getting ready for college. But here we are, ready to encroach up on the beginning of the end, the start of the last arc, Arc 4! A whole lot rounded out the arc, including the death of Mac, which was one of my favorite components - he and his character journey - for this arc. Review replies!**

 **Derick Lindsey- You think it's Corrin? I figure everyone is going to suspect Corrin, but you have to put things into perspective; look over the sections with him extensively and see who else you can loop that back to. I do agree with the switch of it being Corrin and not Midna with Roy, since I just love having philosophical conversations in my stories. Marth very well may be a lost cause, but he has not the charge to decide his own fate until he's out of the hospital.**

 **Metroid-Killer- Well, look at the review for Infernum on Chapter 4, and Retronym did indeed... I still feel bad for her. We've got Roy! Arc 4 has a lot of Roy, actually. God, I do love Corrin, perhaps more than any other character I've ever written in any story. Since we sort of had an in-depth discussion about Mac, he is just jealous. First and foremost, his jealousy blinds everything, especially since Mac views Roy to be a plain-Jane sort of person. The battle in Chicago was Chapter #26: Blindsided in the Back; I still get chills reading the buildup to Marth getting shot in the back. Interesting predictions... let's see if what happens is what you think it will!**

 **Enjoy the beginning of the end, everyone, Chapter #31: Duration of Dust. Trying to shoot for that 300k word count, in which we are 65k away from reaching, which means an average of 6.5k words a chapter... which I know I can beat like no problem.**

* * *

The morning sky is bleak, a mess of gray and white that tumble over each other like fighting cats and dogs. There is a slight breeze blowing about, gusts of wind picking up dead leaves and blowing them about, milling between the gathered crowd around the base of the look. Stood at the very edge of the water, crystalline in appearance, is Midna, her hair fluttering about her face. The drying tears still cling to her cheeks, dripping down onto the pebbled shore. Next to her stands Corrin, head bowed down low, eyes shut, mouthing words that are irrelevant to the situation.

Behind her, close, perhaps too close for comfort, is Roy, and Midna can sense his presence boiling over her skin. " _The body isn't even cold,_ " she scoffs to herself, " _and you're already swooping in. Like a bat out of hell._ " Though, deep down she knows that this is not the case, it makes her feel better to assume the worst in everyone at this moment in time. It's all she has to ride on with what has transpired in the last few days.

It is her that finds him, it is Midna that finds Mac lying dead on the bathroom floor, his throat slit open as if it is wrapping paper torn to shreds by ravenous children whose hands turn into claws. Snake deduces it to be slit by a knife, a rather large blade giving the depth of the cut in the secret service agent's throat. Midna's own throat still burns from the scream she unleashes, dropping her cup of water she had brought with her into the bathroom. The cup shatters on the floor, shards embedding into her palms and the undersides of her feet, which soak blood through the carpet. Robin insists for Midna to sit down - _you're injured Midna,_ she interjects, _please lie down_ \- but the redhead refuses. Lying down means giving in. Lying down means giving up. Lying down means letting the enemy win, whomever the enemy is.

The rest of the compound races to Midna after hearing her scream, and Pit hurls up his dinner from the night before onto the tile, which means even more of a mess to clean up. Robin and Corrin spring into action, to keep everyone away from the scene, to try and calm them all down, and Snake heads straight to the videotapes. The vice president, though Midna can read her displeasure all over her face despite the woman saying otherwise, sews up Mac's neck, washing his body of the dried blood, and dressing him up in one of his nicest suits. His body is pale, so ghostly pale, diamond eyes losing their shimmer as they stare into a black beyond that no one hopes to visit prematurely.

It is Shulk that notices the message on the mirror. Midna has finally stopped crying, finally stopped and got her feet and hands bandaged up, and the Alpha commander's message rises her into a panic. The message is written in Mac's own blood, probably from the same crimson liquid that had spewed out of his throat. It reads, _He had it coming. The glass ceiling is going to break, Syrenet._

Though the meaning is lost on everyone in the compound, Midna herself included, it brings Shulk and Corrin to a standstill.

"What's wrong?" Robin asks, noticing her best friend's sudden change in composure.

After Corrin finishes letting the ebb of shock flow through her body, she drops the hand away from her mouth. "Shulk and I, before Roy's induction, had a conversation about a plan called Operation Glass Ceiling. We were the only two who had that conversation."

"Operation Glass Ceiling?" Snake furrows his eyebrows together. "What's that?"

"Top secret."

"And your vice president and FBI director don't know about it?"

"I'll fill you in on it later," Corrin's tone makes her seem distracted, and the shock once again returns to her face. "I recorded that conversation, but I still know exactly where that tape is. I don't know how anyone besides Shulk or I would know anything about that conversation, or even have an idea about Glass Ceiling."

Shulk crosses his arms, frowning. "That someone in the rebel group somehow knows about the operation?"

"Then why kill Mac over it?" Snake redirects the conversation.

Midna doesn't care any which way about anything right now except that her boyfriend is dead. Even if she is still uncertain herself where they stood before his grisly demise, there is - _was,_ she has to remind herself by biting down on her lip so hard that she bleeds - a feeling there, perhaps not love, but companionship, desire, and lust, a wine glass brim filled with the burning lust of a thousand virgins. Fast forward a few more hours, and here the Syrenet group stands, fractured as can be.

Discussions take place on whether or not Mac should have a funeral. A quick search in the database brings up that the secret service agent prefers to be cremated, to be given some sort of Viking-esque funeral. She finds it to be absolutely silly; why, even in death, would someone as serious as Mac Sarasota want an honorary service done in such a childish manner? This is no longer medieval times. Corrin settles to put Mac's body in a boat, set it out onto one of the lakes in the area, and burn him. The time to prepare a funeral service at Arlington's is too time consuming, and there is no way to airlift the body out of there immediately,

There they stand, on a lakeshore, with Mac's body laying face up at the sky in a wooden boat, all purely a vessel for kindling. Midna swallows heavily, exhaling shakily. Snake offers to do the honors, though Midna cannot understand why. The two share a look before the FBI director steps up the boat, hands clenching onto the outer rim. He looks at her despairingly, eyes full of sorrow, a mahogany mirror reflecting sympathy, fury, and gentleness. In Snake's left hand is a stick taken from one of the trees near the compound, the other hand a lighter.

The familiar _chink_ sound hits Midna's ears and she squeezes her eyes shut. She cannot look over at the flame. The fire, the same color of her hair, the same color as Mac's dried blood, and now she's going to have to bury - _burn,_ she inwardly yells at herself, _burn him_ \- a loved one. Snake sets one of the endings of the stick on fire, the wood sparking with the flame, turning it into a torch. Mac is dressed finely in one of his suits that he had brought with him on the trip, eyes shut, and he looks like he's sleeping peacefully. He's sleeping so peacefully that nothing can ever harm him again anymore. No one can ever harm him again. Snake drops the torch into the boat, kicking it away from shore.

The flames turn into tendrils of hell, swallowing the boat whole. The farther out into the middle of the lake it goes, the more it is consumed by the ravenous cardinal flame. Midna looks away as the smoke begins to billow higher into the sky, a sulfurous cloud of ash and salty kisses. She can hear his voice in her head, laughing, the sound of his kisses against her forehead, all the compliments, and she's overwrought with emotion. She crumbles to her knees, hugging herself tight. Her sobs rack her frame, and yet no one seems to go up to her and comfort her with a guiding arm around the shoulder. Her tears burn her face, as if she is crying out sulfuric acid instead of a clear liquid, and the pain constantly spikes inside her heart.

To imagine what Mac's flesh must be looking like now, as the fire eats away at him. The leather burns away, soon his white skin will turn charcoal black and start to rot, smell foul of carrion and volcanoes, and his precious look that Midna is enraptured by the moment she sets eyes on him is to die in a cloud of smoke. She looks up, opening her eyes out of the mesh of muddled tears, and the fire has swallowed the boat whole, a pillar of fire settled atop the water, and Midna knows... Mac is no more.

All that shall remain is ashes, and as time tolls, soon the ashes will break down into dust, and away his body will flit and float all across the country, all across the world. He'll return to the dirt, as if he never existed. Midna is afraid she will forget.

She gasps, stumbling over. Roy's hands encircle around her shoulders, holding her tight. Midna has no idea what she had been doing, but she had been scrambling towards the water's edge, desperate to jump in and save Mac from the cruelty bestowed upon him. "Easy, easy..." Roy says soothingly into her ear, holding her tight. Midna does not want this anymore, she wants to be with him. She's cheated, she's been swindled, someone has wronged her. "He's gone, Midna. Mac is gone..."

" _You wanted this, didn't you?_ " Midna wants to yell, but she knows if that she does this, her relationship with Roy will deteriorate, and she's already lost one man in her life that she'd care about. " _Your master plan, wasn't it Roy? Get Mac out of the way to come after me instead?_ " None of this comes from her mouth, only the slight escape of a sob here or there. All the other members of Syrenet can do is watch. Shulk, Pit, Ike, Corrin, Robin, Snake... none of them can care for her in a way that must make her feel meaningful.

Roy lets go after a bit, after she's stopped moving, and even after she's stopping crying, as he has to be sure. People cope with death in different ways, and the last thing the group needs is someone else to cope with death by hoping to join everyone else in the afterlife.

She knows who did this. She can picture their smug smile right in front of her own face. Diamond eyes. Lemonade hair. A crooked smile revealing more than what is let on. A hand constantly twitching around the trigger of a gun. Midna is certain. This is all Sheik Braring's fault. She hasn't heard from her since they connected fists in Chicago, fighting over Marth's crippled body, when the sounds are intense and the sky is exploding in a shell of gunfire.

Her Ocarina... _how dare she!_ Ocarina and Amber, names given to each other at a drunken New Years party... where now they build legacies and crumbled empires. Midna is consumed by a rage, evident by her forceful shaking which causes Roy to back up. All of her years of friendship, all her years of counseling the girl in the ways of the world, and this is how she's paid back. With the death of someone she actually cares about, with the destruction of everything she's held dear. This is not part of the plan, it had never been part of the plan.

It all had been fun and games, Midna tells herself as she sleeps so she can stay asleep and not wake up with night terrors, it has all been harmless. Until the attack on the group in Chicago, with Zant and the midnight ambush, Midna believes that this is Sheik bluffing. Oklahoma City all had been a misconception when she watches it on the news and hears the newscasters describing a girl she has known in college, a girl she has known all of her adult life... break such a promise that only true friends try to keep.

" _Keep hiding,_ " Midna whispers to herself, vengeance full in her voice. " _Keep hiding, Sheik. Show up in Detroit if you have the nerve to be seen for the coward that you are. I dare you. Play that hideous instrument one more time and let's see how well your notes fare._ "

She stands up, Roy having backed up away after her anger is expelled. Corrin had stepped up to the duo at this point, and Midna marches over to her, gripping her wrist with a newfound fire.

"Midna-" Corrin starts abruptly, cut off guard. The president looks at the woman with a sense of fright, and Midna can read the machinations in the president's mind going _tick-tock._

"I want them dead," Midna says, and her tone has never been so harsh, has never been so cold... in fact, a coldness that even surprises herself at this point. "I want them _all_ dead, Corrin. Every single damn rebel that dares follow us to this city. They killed him, they killed Mac. All because they're cowards who think they can kick over Syrenet when its down. Let's prove them wrong. Let's show them what they do when they kill one of us. Let's tell them that Syrenet sends their regards."

She lets go of Corrin's wrist, which the president goes to rub. No one else tries speaking to her, as Midna storms up the side of the hill. When she reaches the top, her gaze travels downward to stare at the pebbled ground. Mac would've liked this picturesque setting, she can tell, he likes - _liked_ \- nature. Human nature as well. Animalistic nature.

"I'll show them my nature. The nature of the true-born killer I have been trained to be."

* * *

"It is Corrin's prerogative to do what?" Robin asks for the thousandth time.

Snake sighs, resting his right hand on the butt of the pistol hiding behind his coat in his dress pant back pocket. "To scout out a possible location that we can use for a Syrenet facility. We're sitting ducks at the compound."

"Then why didn't she come herself?"

"You know why."

After Mac's makeshift funeral, in which Midna's sudden surge of retribution and rage leaves the rest of the group uneasy, Corrin turns to the remainder of those gathered and doled out orders. Shulk, Roy, Pit, and Ike are to go back to the compound and test out their suits in the middle of practice, to trial their AI's in exercises on maintenance and survival, and generally not mess anything else up. It is at Ike's behest that he asks to return to the hospital to be Marth's bedside, but he withers underneath the silver queen's glare, going with the other guys to follow her commands. Midna declares that she needs an afternoon to herself to drink and fight, as long as she's back before sundown.

It leaves the administrative trio of Robin, Snake, and the president herself on the stony shore. Before Robin is able to input her own opinions into the direction of where else the day could go, Corrin snaps her viper gaze at the other two and demands that they search Detroit for a possible space that would be suitable for Syrenet to set up in, an actual facility to build Syrenet suits and AI units and sell them... and the task has never felt more trivial. Corrin looks out over the lake's water, Mac's funeral pyre _still_ burning on the open water, and confusedly says she has calls to make, not saying another word, dismissing Robin and Snake to their task.

Now Snake finds himself surrounded by noise, a constant prattling of noise concerning Detroit's downtown air of commerce. Taxis and the constant slamming of doors. The ghastly echo of horns blaring at each other in a pride war. A mix of languages, mostly English, a blend of tongues and words floating alongside the glass windowed skyscrapers. He does not like how many people there are in the city, but there is nothing he can do about it save shoot a couple shots in the air and immediately place them in hot water.

However, he is unable to focus. How can he, with the events that have transpired? In less than forty-eight hours, the Syrenet group had been savagely attacked by the Midwestern rebel force in Chicago, one of their own commanders is shot and paralyzed from the waist down, the political leaders of Detroit host them in their hall to be brutally murdered by one of their own, a manic cyborg-humanoid monster beckons them closer to the teetering edge of an abyss, and some unknown intruder slits the throat of one their own operatives under their own roof. It is a whirlwind of emotions and actions that Snake is starting to get blinded by. How does a sheep know it is being led to slaughter?

Despite having his hand constantly resting on the holster of his gun, a tension rests along his shoulders, drawing him tightly together like a bound marionette doll dancing precariously over a tightrope walkway. He has Robin to take care of, in a city he has never been to, and it all feels foreign. The vice president stays close to him, by his own wishes, which Robin dutifully agrees to. There have been numerous situations when Snake Karlo is out of his element, like a fish without legs, or a lion who does not know how to swim thrown into the Pacific Ocean, but this time it all feels different. It feels as if he is supposed to know what to do and how to handle any and all obstacles.

If he is to turn around a corner, Snake cannot picture what is waiting for him. He cannot picture what would be taunting him with a crooked finger, angling him closer and closer to the water, before he is pushed in.

"Snake?" Robin's voice breaks through the numb silence that is swallowing his brain whole. "Snake!"

He shakes his head confusedly. "What?"

"You've been looking at this building for minutes." Robin's face is flushed, a shade of pink flooding her cheeks, as if she has been shouting. "You wouldn't respond to me calling you or anything."

The FBI director gingerly touches the left side of his face, which for some reason is tingly, like all the blood had been cut off. "Why does my face feel weird?"

"I had to slap you," Robin confesses. "It- it didn't work. Are you alright?"

"I was just thinking," he looks down at the sidewalk.

"I don't believe that."

"I was, Robin."

She scoffs, her pallid air being blown away like a strands of fabric being tossed around by a playful dog ripping a blanket to single lines of linen. "That's all everyone tells me when I ask what's wrong. That it's nothing. That they're _just_ thinking."

Snake looks at her, frowning heavily. "Robin-"

However, it seems his protests aren't going to get Snake anywhere, as the vice president turns on her heel and walks away from him. It is this sort of crap, he deduces, for why he is so strangely out of his element. Everyone is high strung, walking on shards of glass next to a sleeping bear. One wrong step and the bear wakes up, slashes your chest, and the streams of copper and crimson and cardinal leak from you until you're dead. A mine field that picks itself up and walks over to the next location, that is the journey Corrin has dragged him along to since he has nothing better to do.

Robin is on the war path it seems to stay away from the director, as if distancing herself from the only thing who can keep her safe in the entire city is a smart thing to do. Snake finds himself running out of breath as he jogs to keep up with the vice president, his gun clapping his pants every step he takes. The faces muddle into one, and they all have ginger hair, with eyes that are a burning furnace that will never let go. Snake knows this is all a trick, all an illusion, that Ganondorf is not following them down in the middle of Detroit purely because he can.

He catches Robin's swirl of blizzard hair vanish into a building, and he skids to a stop, deftly ducking inside the open door. The building she had stepped into is an apartment building, seemingly so with an out of order elevator and a staircase leading fifteen floors up. It is an empty building, either with something getting put in, or a place having just dropped out due to bankruptcy. However, his vice president is nowhere to be seen. The walls are stripped completely, gray stone tablets facing him everywhere he turns.

"Robin!" he shouts.

"I'm on the third floor!" she calls back.

Snake's shoulders drop down with a sigh. For a minute he is afraid he lost her, and he does not know what he would've done. He's lost Mac, who he had just started to like, he can see that he's losing Midna to an anger that can only be described by vengeance, and it is looming on the horizon that he's losing Corrin to insanity for trying to build a phoenix out of ashes that have withered away to sand. Should Snake Karlo lose Robin Wyndel, should he watch her beautiful paisley colored dresses and gray shawls get splattered with blood... he does not know what he'll do.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking around. The place is empty... it's still being built. I think Corrin would like it!" Robin answers.

"Do you want me to join you?" His hand is encircled around the knob of the staircase banister, one foot testing out the stone step.

"Look around the bottom floor. And take pictures!"

Snake rolls his eyes. Despite Robin having the maternal nature that she does, there's an edge of command that creeps up in her voice every now and then that shows she's enjoying her position of power. He lets go of the banister, walking around the bottom floor of the empty apartment building. It is a mystery he wonders, as to why there isn't anyone working inside. There aren't any cement trucks outside, no workers or employees or foremen bustling inside or outside. There's no noise save for Robin's heels clacking on the floor above him, and the echoing noises of Snake's own dress shoes on the ground. Why would there be a construction project with not a single soul working in the heat of the day on a weekday? None of the workers could be out for lunch, Snake frowns, checking his watch. It's nearing 4 PM, which would be rather late for a lunch, and rather early for dinner.

He steps into a room adjacent off the entrance, surprised to see that it is larger than the entrant room. It is a certainly spacious area to place things, a plethora of outlets lining the walls. A computer room perhaps? Why would there be a computer room just right off the front door? It is a recipe for disaster. Even though the place is empty, a feeling of dread washes back over Snake, hands going straight to his gun. He pulls his pistol out from the holster, holding it lowered down by his thighs.

There is another room off the one he's in, but it is a lot smaller than the one before it. He furrows his eyebrows together in confusion and suspicion.

It's a bathroom, though there isn't a door to separate it from all the others. He walks slowly over to it. It must be the only room in the entire building that has electricity, given that there is a light stuck in the ceiling, a halo of dim halcyon surrounding the room. A toilet sits in the far back corner of the bathroom, the bathroom no larger than one found in a dentist's office. Opposite the toilet is a sink with a faucet, and a mirror.

Snake steps into the center of the bathroom, looking behind him. Given that the room is supposed to be an operation bathroom of sorts for recreational use, he has no shower that he has to worry about, no people peeking behind shower curtains. He shudders, thinking momentarily of Mac. The feeling of tiredness pulls at his eyes, causing him to face the sink.

He rests his pistol on the top of the toilet, turning on the faucet. Snake figures that if the bathroom has running electricity, it'll have running water. His thoughts are met with assurance as cold water begins pouring out of the cold faucet. He pools some in his cupped hands, splashing his face. The drops hit his face with an alarming speed, cooling him off, and the sluggishness of the afternoon starts to recede. When's the last time Snake has given himself any proper time to relax? He's unable to give himself an answer.

The director hangs his head low, almost that the tips of his hair touch the basin of the sink. Water droplets drip off of his face and hair, some of it slightly wet, having gotten splashed. He takes a deep breath in, and a deep breath out. This has perhaps been the most normal hour that he's had since leaving D.C to join Corrin on this Syrenet trip.

"I'm way over my head..." he mutters to himself. "How am I going to go back to a normal life after this?"

"You won't," a voice says, responding to his question.

Snake looks up at the voice, staring in the mirror, before jumping back in fright, hands scrambling for his pistol. "What the _fuck?_ " he shouts loudly.

The smirking, smiling face of council member Ganondorf Perish stares back at him from the mirror, having _not_ been there before. "Good afternoon, Director Karlo. Black suits you. Are you in mourning?"

The brunette uses both hands to grip the butt of the pistol, pointing it shakily at the mirror. "How- how are you-"

Ganondorf holds up a hand, nodding his head. "Have nothing to fear, Mr. Karlo. I am _not_ in the bathroom with you. Just appearing to you here."

Snake does not drop the gun. "I don't trust you."

"Shame. I thought we had something going."

"Something going?" Snake is unable to hold the scorn back in his voice. "I watched you murder twelve political members on your council, and then proceed to threaten my president! How do you call that the beginning of a friendship?"

The cyborg has to frown at the question, the look in his eyes a daunting one, and he curls his lips up into a cruel smirk. "I did never think of the Council of Thirteen as my friends, Mr. Karlo, I hope you know that. As a matter of fact, I got _into_ the inner circle by murdering one of their own previously. Not that it matters any which way since they are now rotting inside the council hall, and I am here speaking to you," Ganondorf pauses, letting the words sink in. "And, please, lower the gun. It makes you look barbaric."

" _I'm_ barbaric?" Snake cannot believe his ears. "You have no right to talk!"

"Says the gentleman who plunged a knife through my chest, but alas, I did not come here to trade insults. I could have appeared to anyone in your Syrenet group, Mr. Karlo, but I chose to speak to you because out of all of your comrades, I trust you the most. Now please, lower the gun."

Snake does not want to. He fears that if he does, then he is giving into Ganondorf's iron will to execute him how he pleases, and if that happens, then what else could the cyborg do? Snake is still trying to comprehend, in some human thinking if it is even possible, how the metallic monster is appearing to him inside a mirror, which has nothing to by being connected with the Internet or AI Units, or electricity, or anything that could possibly connect two linking bridges together.

Ganondorf tilts his head to the other side, like a cat, but his gaze is mocking. Always mocking. "A magician never reveals his secrets, Mr. Karlo. You are wondering how I am speaking to you without a connective tie to Syrenet, which is the correct link of thinking, but it is not my place to tell you how this is possible. I hope you can understand."

Enough small talk.

"Why are you here?" Snake asks, and he feels his fingers tighten around the trigger of the pistol.

"I am bored."

"I do not buy that for a second."

"Does my face give it away, Mr. Karlo?" Ganondorf crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back in the mirror's space, a movement that Snake cannot believe his eyes is happening right about now. "Why are you wearing black? Are you in mourning?"

"As if you don't already know."

"I am not God, Mr. Karlo. Apologies in advance if I have given that sort of aura, but I am not a paragon. I cannot know every single thing that happens at all times. None of you have stepped into my realm yet, so I cannot know all that happens here in this city."

Snake furrows his eyebrows together. What is the cyborg's angle here? "Even if I felt compelled to tell you, I wouldn't because-"

"You don't trust me," Ganondorf cuts him off, but he's doing it in such an infuriating way, picking at his fingernails. "I know, Mr. Karlo, I hear it _every_ single day. I am used to it. Now, we'll need total darkness for this to work. A moment, if you will."

Before Snake can utter another word of protest, the light in the ceiling shuts off, the sound of something slamming shut hits the FBI director's ears, and before he is able to shout or do anything, the entire scope of Snake's world is plunged into darkness, hands seizing him out of the mirror, before a wave of black overtakes him.

Blood roars in Snake's ears, his vision is met with the searing light of a supernova, his tongue has gone numb, and he can feel something binding his arms to his sides, his legs underneath each other... the clatter of his pistol to the floor, before Ganondorf's laugh consumes all, and then the secrets are shared.

Snake receives it all.

All he receives.

He finally sees.

Enlightenment.

Rapture.

Solace.

Pain.

Exhilaration.

Adrenaline.

Knowledge.

Snake is blinded and healed of blindness in one fell swoop.

All he shall see is Ganondorf's truth, a matter drowning in greyscale.

Elsewhere in the building, Robin hears Snake's muffled shout, goes running downstairs for him, and into a void of nothingness can she see him, surrounded.

And elsewhere in the building, Snake believes.

* * *

Death is a strange concept. Lucas recognizes this at face value, though his world is seen through a barrier that keeps him separated from everyone else, a glossy shimmer drowning in a blue light, grid lines and dollar signs going crisscross over one another, blurring together into some navy mass that is incoherent, a language that the AI Unit cannot speak. Whenever he looks down at his hands, he does not see the pale and blemish-free hands that he's used to, but charred ones with flesh hanging off the bone, wounds driven into the core of his palms, and a constant stream of blood flowing free.

Without Ness, Lucas is alone. He has no one in the digital world to talk to, since the other AI Units generally stay away to themselves in the forever changing world that they have created. He can see through his barrier the rest of the world whenever the disk is on, but he is unable to interact with them the way he would want to, the way Ness would have wanted him to. Lucas has been turned off ever since the fight in downtown Chicago, no one even turning the disk on to speak to him.

" _Do they not want me around anymore?_ " he wonders, lying on his back at the self-created beach he had made a few days ago, biting fresh peaches off from an orchard just a bit off the shore, as he stares at the digitalized sky with a vibrant sun that can be whatever color he wishes it to be. " _Sometimes Syrenet regrets creating us, don't they?_ "

All the other AI Units - specifically Ike's - brush off Lucas's comments as pure idiosyncratic thought, just the musings of a piece of artificial intelligence that has too much time on their hands. It is Lucina's snap at him one evening that causes him to surf the web and look up the definition of artificial intelligence. His discovery, so articulately stated, is the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.

That's all he is, Lucas realizes. A tool. He's a tool used by humans for their betterment since they don't know better. Does anyone in Syrenet even value him? Does Shulk?

He thinks back to the conversation he had with him at the council meeting before the group had departed for Chicago, with Lucas's jealousy over Pit and Robin's Automatic Army. The AI Unit is filled with a spurt of glee when he hears that the reason the attack had gone unnoticed is partly due to the drones and their malfunction. He wants to look at the president directly in the eye and yell at her, to say how dare she throw away one aspect of Syrenet for another, made by upstart technician who wears angel wings, and a woman who cannot tell the difference between friend and foe. It is all jealousy on Lucas's part. Had he, Lucina, Kuro, and all the other AI Units been allowed to roam freely in the airspace surrounding the venue, the mess they have wouldn't have happened.

The rush of euphoria that he feels is self-satisfying, and then he is crushed with the moralistic side of it all. Marth is injured as the aftermath of this fight, and there is nothing Lucas himself can do to heal the commander more than what any hospital doctor could. It fills him with incredible shame. Here he is, gloating in someone's failure, when that failure is something unforeseeable, and its consequences are far more dire than he could ever imagine, and if Lucas is to take a look around the hub of his own world, then he can imagine quite a lot.

However, in this moment and time, the disk is currently in power mode, with Lucas sitting on the edge of his disk in a foot tall, holographic form. He dangles his legs over the edge, feeling microscopic, even though that is not the case. Shulk is elsewhere in the room, bent over something, muttering like crazy. Lucas believes that the Alpha commander is drawing Fiora again, like a bat out of hell with the speed that the pencil moves on the paper, the way the graphite smears and falls to the floor.

Lucas does not know how to feel about hearing the details concerning Mac's death. He never spoke to the secret service agent directly, if even at all, but he knows what he witnesses, and that everyone in the group minus his own commander seemed warm to the fellow. The AI Unit sits on his disk, head looking upwards at the designs etched into the ceiling, his head filled with the thoughts of Mac. Even though Lucas is not close to the ex-agent, it is odd to see someone for a prolonged period of time, to witness them create connections, and then lose them forever. How does someone cope with that? He doesn't take Ness and the matter concerning Ness's disappearance with as much grace as he'd have liked, but it is all in the past now.

Or so he chooses to believe.

The AI Unit gazes over at his commander, trying to understand his thoughts. As Shulk rights himself some more, it turns out, contradictory to what Lucas thought, the blond commander is not drawing his dead wife, but fixing some compartment on the Syrenet suit, specifically the helmet. Why the helmet? Lucas frowns. That is the particular place where the official wearing the Syrenet suit places the AI Unit disk. Is it faulty?

"What are you doing?" Lucas asks, his voice barely a whisper, if even at that. The urge to create loud noise is lost on the eleven year-old.

"Fixing the helmet," Shulk answers.

"Why?"

"It got nicked with a baseball bat in the fight," the commander turns to look at the AI Unit. "Don't you remember? Some idiot came swinging at me and clunked me on the side of the head. Your entire world must've shook. I just want to make sure it isn't damaged."

"I remember the frame fizzing out some," Lucas says truthfully, nodding. Here Shulk is screaming rabid commands at him, cussing, losing the very essence of his mind, and then the entire world that Lucas knows is brought to its knees, shaking tremendously, so much that the connection stills for a moment. It is only a moment, but that solitary three seconds is enough between his commander's life or death. "I assumed you were hit by a bomb."

"A bomb? I'd be dead, Lucas."

"People have survived worse things."

"Oh, have they?" Shulk turns back to his work, holding a screwdriver now as he twists away at some gizmo out of Lucas's line of sight. "Are you now some sort of expert military commander?"

"No sir."

"Then please keep your assumptions to yourself. You are my eyes and ears when my own fail me," Shulk points the screwdriver back at Lucas although he himself has not turned his body. Something about that movement irritates the AI Unit, a deep to the bone core sort of irritation, a bite from a mosquito that cannot be quelled. "I need you in pristine shape."

The two sit in silence once more, Lucas going back to swinging and kicking his legs. He recalls the very first day he had been brought into the world. His first sight of the world, or rather the United States of America - Lucas thinks at one point in his youth that it had been the entire world - is Pit's smiling face, which to Lucas is terrifying. All of the rather boring and copious details are explained in great length. Lucas Dio is an AI Unit, an artificial intelligence unit for the suits of Syrenet, created from a real life person's memories and characteristics that were coded and designed into a single piece of moving technology. A weapon that can smile at you and murder you in one fell swoop.

Somewhere in time there did exist a real life boy named Lucas Dio, who dies a young death at the age of eleven years-old, and as far as Lucas - the AI Unit that is - is concerned, it had been a form of cancer. Leukemia? This real life archetype that the blond is modeled after has gorgeous diamond eyes, an affinity for learning songs in different languages, and a latitude in foreign cuisine. From there, Lucas builds himself a library of information and facts that are brought to life by Pit's programming, and from there on the jealousy builds, the dependency builds, and the two-day old AI Unit has amassed more information together than even what Solomon could dream of.

None of this can prepare Lucas for death, however, and when the news of Mac's demise falls on his ears, which are no longer deaf, the world spins and the bile appears in his throat.

"Shulk?" Lucas calls out his commander's voice, this time bringing some strength back into it.

Shulk turns, and he is reminded of that small boy on the subway holding his mother's hand, sniffling from a cold, all the way back when he had been marched into Corrin's office to discuss Operation Glass Ceiling. Lucas Dio is the son that Shulk Roberts never had the chance to have, to be the father he never got to be. "Yes, Lucas?"

"How was the funeral for Mac today?"

It is an odd question, Lucas knows this, by the way Shulk frowns. He is the only member of the Syrenet retinue not allowed to join, though it is no fault of his own. He is the last line of defense for the compound, should any rebels try and have fun. "What do you mean?"

"How'd it go?"

"As well as any funeral could, I suppose, Lucas. But it wasn't really a funeral," Shulk pauses, setting the screwdriver down on his work table, wiping his brow which is starting to have beads of sweat trickle down his forehead. "We laid Mac into a wooden boat, and set the boat on fire."

A lump forms in Lucas's throat. "Cremation."

"It is in Mac's personal will to be cremated. Why a man at only thirty would have a completely written will is beyond me," the commander muses, shaking his head. It is another thought for another time for another completely different, unrelated matter. "Midna was justifiably upset."

"Were you?" Lucas asks suddenly.

"Was I what?" Shulk grabs a rag from the table, throwing it on his shoulder.

"Upset. About Mac's death."

The commander pauses, having grabbed a water bottle to drink from. He looks at Lucas, and the AI Unit is unable to read the man's face. Why does the question bother him so? Lucas has always been able to count on Shulk for emotional support, to act as a bargaining chip in the games of angels and demons, and to be the one who'll answer whatever curiosities come his way... but as of late, again, Lucas feels like a tool. It is Shulk who demands to see Fiora, although it is Lucas who proposes the idea, which Shulk had refused originally. Lucas's mind is like a train on multiple crisscrossing tracks, a digression down one rabbit hole, falling through a looking glass the other way, and on and on it goes.

Shulk walks over to Lucas, kneeling down to look at the technological human in the eyes. "As well as anyone would be, I suppose, Lucas. Why do you ask?"

"It's been on my mind," Lucas answers. Then, after a pause, "You just do not seem to be bothered by it, is all."

"Am I supposed to be?"

"He's a member of Syrenet."

"He _was_ a member of Syrenet," Shulk corrects. "His death is still a mystery to us. Either someone wanted him out of the way or he foolishly got himself killed."

"But why would someone want him dead?"

"Why do the rebels want us _all_ dead?" the commander counters back.

"Fair point," Lucas nods, acknowledging this. Still, however, part of him is not pleased. "When I lost Ness, to whatever mechanical malfunction that had happened to him," the AI Unit does not stop his speech, but he notices it, the way Shulk's face slightly wavers in nausea, the downturn of his lips, a nearly imperceptible twitch of the eyes... what is the commander hiding? "I didn't know how to feel. However, this is different. Someone wanted a member of our group dead for a reason none of us can explain. And you don't even care."

"I don't care?" Shulk drops the water bottle and the rag onto the floor. "What do you want me to do, Lucas? Sit in a corner and cry about it? Because clearly everyone here thinks I'm some unstable piece of shit! He died, Lucas! Mac got murdered and now it is up to the rest of us to ensure that this doesn't happen again! You know why it's a problem? Mac died here, under _our_ roof and we can't find out who did it. No one appears on the security tapes, and there's no signs of a single forced entry. All we have is that stupid message."

"Operation Glass Ceiling..." Lucas whispers.

"What?" Shulk glances over.

"Operation Glass Ceiling..." the AI Unit repeats.

"How would you know about that? None of us told you the message."

"I saw it," Lucas shrugs.

Shulk tilts his head back, almost laughing. "This day gets better and better, doesn't it?" he grabs the water bottle and rag off of the floor, going back to kneel in front of Lucas. "Listen, Lucas, you're confused. Syrenet has lost someone, and Corrin has her suspicions that its the rebel group that caused us to flee from Chicago. To ensure that nothing like this happens again, she has working overtime on our Syrenet suits to keep you," he points at Lucas, "and the rest of the AI Units to be on top of their game. I had no love for Mac, but I had no dislike for him either. He had been simply another soldier to help us get through the mission that we need to do. However, since someone has made our personal loss their gain, it is going to matter now as if affects all of us _and_ the program. This is how I deal with grief, Lucas. By acting like it doesn't affect me."

" _Liar,_ " Lucas thinks to himself. " _You are sobbing every night over Fiora's dead body, calling yourself a lousy human being and husband. You share no love for Mac because he got in your way._ "

The commander sighs, resting his elbows on his knees. "I lost my wife. Syrenet lost Mac. If I lose you or Corrin or anyone else in this compound..." he doesn't finish the sentence, and instead decides to straighten himself upright, walking out of the room, still holding the water bottle in his hand.

Lucas is uncertain why he got on his commander's case so heavily. Testing the waters perhaps, but he is not quite sure. The AI Unit exhales a shaky breath, looking back up at the ceiling. Why did Shulk lose his composure over Ness? Why is he not bothered heavily with Mac's death?

Whatever the case may be, Lucas doesn't believe whatever Shulk says.

And if he doesn't believe Shulk, then who could the AI Unit believe?

* * *

 **There we are ladies and gentlemen! That was Chapter #31: Duration of Dust. Man, a whole lot you all have learned and a whole lot has kicked off the beginning of this last arc. We have a whole lot to cover, and a lot of ambiguity to get out of the way.**

 **First off, writing Midna for this point of view has been quite enjoyable... her emotions are so real, and her mind is so divided down the middle on things that it makes her completely compelling. But, we also found out something quite important... Midna is Amber, which means she's been the one involved with all the conversations between her and Sheik. What does that make Midna in all of this in relation to Sheik's antics? Interested in your thoughts.**

 **Secondly, Snake has a lot now resting on his shoulders. What do you think happened with the end of his section, between him and Ganondorf? What would the cyborg have told the FBI director that makes him 'believe' and believe what exactly? The answer very well may just surprise you.**

 **And here, lastly, with Lucas... god I love writing artificial intelligence characters. Here we have a programmed eleven year-old who just smells blood in the water, that's what he is, a shark who is jealous beyond belief, still trying to understand what human emotion is. However, is Lucas's own suspicion of Shulk justified, and what exactly is he suspecting Shulk of? Also curious for those thoughts.**

 **Next chapter is going to bring everything to a pinnacle peaking point, and holy shit I am so excited. I will try my hardest to have the chapter out sometime next week if I can manage, since I want to get through Arc 4 has fast as I can, given the sheer scope of what is going to be happening in the story. A few of the chapters in this arc will be 10k words or more, and that's due to there being just that much to get through. Please review and let me know what you thought. I love you all so much! Can't wait for Chapter #32: Darkness in the Sewers. Who lives in the sewers? Have an amazing day! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	32. Chapter 32: Darkness in the Sewers

***deep breath* Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #32: Darkness in the Sewers. Today is going to be a momentous day. There are four chapters in this arc that I have been dying to get to and write, and this one is one of them without a doubt, as this is the beginning of the end, ladies and gentlemen. Last chapter set the stage and set the tone for the way the rest of the story will play out, with a few surprising twists such as that Midna is Amber, and Snake has been revealed something... something or other by Ganondorf, which some of you are still trying to figure out. Review replies!**

 **CrashGuy01- Glad to have you back! Hope you get to read every other update from here on out in enough time, as I love getting your reviews! A lot has indeed happened in three chapters... Ganondorf finally has shown up and murdered a ton of people, Mac dies tragically, and our favorite female fatale may be a double agent. Thank you so much for your commentary on Ganondorf! I am so happy you're enjoying his character, he's the perfect mix of sinister and suave, and the foreshadowing has been building him perfectly. You think he's the villain? I'll keep my mouth shut. You think Snake, Roy, and Shulk will die? Interesting... very interesting.**

 **SeththeGreat- Snake has proven to be the most trustworthy, and you even mentioned it in the review for Chapter 29, why would Ganondorf pick him above everyone else? You already know, and you'll realize it soon enough. Snake** ** _is_** **okay, and the only reason I'm letting you know is because you sound worried. He isn't harmed in any way. Lucas has been programmed to believe Shulk, but obviously humans cannot control an intelligence that learns more and more every day. Now, what do you expect Lucas will do that is disobedient, and what consequences could that portray in the end?**

 **Metroid Killer- I couldn't ever tell you that Midna was Amber since it said so in the story. That'd be cheating the reveal, which is why I always tried pointing you in a different direction. And no, it's not mind control. It's a Sci-Fi, but not a fantasy / supernatural sort of story. Lucas is a complex character underneath, out of all the characters I think he's gotten the least amount of time in the main group, since he was originally one of the Top 4 characters in the story in terms of importance.**

 **Enjoy the chapter... and prepare for everything and anything.**

* * *

Shulk is staring out at the window. He isn't staring at anything in particular, more of just a general gaze at the Detroit landscape in front of him. The glittering walls, the chrome plating, and the price it cost for all of this to be achieved. His wife's life, his wife's blood splattered on concrete, her last breath being sucked in by the air vents that cool the stupid denizens inside those diamond fortresses... it fills him with an anger that cannot be described in mundane terms. Even though he's given Corrin his undying support, a part of him will forever nag away. How dare he desecrate Fiora's memory? How dare he? He curls up in the sheets while the hours tick and tock wondering that very question, but no answers come to him, or at least ones that easily explain the problems he's having.

Lucas's alienation is concerning as well, he dwells silently, tapping his fingers on the table. It is impossible that the AI Unit would know about his hands in Ness's demise, and even then, for Lucas being as smart as he is, the blonde should understand regardless the reasons for the other AI Unit's destruction. " _Orders are orders..._ " Shulk whispers to himself in his head. It is the one thought that has kept him forging on in such an awful world. It is what he has to say while Corrin barks such ridiculous commands and such destructive truths. He'll never understand how the woman operates on the cold level that she does. Everyone sees the silverette for some savior, but all the Alpha commander sees is a venomous snake; it's what he's always seen and that'll be the last thing he sees before he dies. Before she dies. Before the two of them both die. However, it is what she says in privacy, while their lips are connected to shoulder blades and limbs are over carpets and hands entangled in velvet curtains that stems the flow of questioning.

 _"Fiora will be avenged. I will avenge her, Shulk? You know this don't you?"_

 _"How can I be so sure of that, Madam President?"_

 _"Have I ever let you down before?"_

 _"With Fiora."_

He looks away from the memory, as if closing his eyes will obstruct the thought. It obviously won't, but the release is all he has to go by. It is Corrin's promise, that the city of Detroit will pay in some way, which is enough to have Shulk drop the old promise to his wife. However, what exactly is Fiora to him now? A woman dead in the ground with a gaping hole in her neck? A woman with glass eyes that'll never open again, a woman who left him in the middle of the most crucial moments of their lives and dies during it? She's pregnant, but because the silverette queen is making her call to arms from atop her gilded throne, Shulk lets her go. It's his fault. It's her fault! It's Corrin's fault! It's all of their damn faults!

Shulk rests his head in his hands, starting to get a headache. He hates having time to be docile, as this gets the gears running and it makes him think. It makes him think of what exactly he is thinking of now, these sad moments, these moments where he curses Fiora's name, but he knows that isn't true. He'll love her with his dying breaths, whenever those may be.

 _"Do you want to get married, Fiora?"_

 _"Do you seriously think you have to ask me that question, Shulk? You should know me better than that."_

 _"I'm unable to tell if that's a yes or a no."_

 _"It's a yes, you big idiot."_

This is a memory he wishes can continue, as it causes Shulk to smile. When's the last time he's ever smiled? He cannot recall, with all that's happened so far over the course of this mission. In actuality, it all dates back to Roy, he realizes. It's when the nightmares started kicking back up. It's when Corrin mentions Operation Glass Ceiling, and ever since then, the commander has had a gun pointed at every ceiling and roof he can find, hoping the glass shatters and that what he has been dreading for so long happens, but he knows that it will _never_ happen. It has to happen here in Detroit, and nowhere else. It's the payment that the city must give up, as Corrin predicts with their ninetieth sessional affair.

 _"Do you love me, Shulk?_ _"_

 _"I fear you."_

He does not remember who asked him that question, be it Fiora or Corrin. Perhaps he fears both of them, one who still harms him from the grave, and one who can fire a bullet into his brain and end it all now. Shulk wonders, though this is only when he's lost in the cups and has a few glasses of tequila in his belly, on why he never went and jumped off a cliff to meet Fiora in the afterlife, should there be one. He thinks, when he is three years younger and full of much more ambition and hope, that she's his all and when she's gone there's nothing else for him to live for.

 _"But you have me to live for. Only me, commander."_

Is it Corrin or Fiora telling him this? When did their voices ever muddle together?

His tapping resumes, his tapping continues, and Shulk wants to do something else other than this stupid tapping. His prayer is answered when his computer goes off, the device sitting open. He looks over at it, seeing that he has a video call coming in, the monitor flashing a hazardous red color, which means it's urgent. Shulk sits up a little faster now, tapping open the browser. His heart slightly sinks, and his mouth tastes something bitter in the back of his throat.

Corrin is looking back at him from the other side of her screen, wherever she may be. He knows that she's not on the compound, but that's irrelevant. Why is she calling him?

"Madam President," he greets curtly. Deep down, he knows this will bother her to no end, and that is partly why he did it.

"Commander," she reciprocates the slight animosity. Their relationship is like night and day, a surfer riding a wave that pinnacles and crests and troughs multiple times until wiping him out in a sandy, drowning mess.

"Is something the matter?"

Corrin locks her jaw. "No, not necessarily."

"Not necessarily?"

"I'm somewhere in the city, driving to the airport."

" _Airport?_ " Shulk asks incredulously, scooting back in his chair. "You're leaving the city without us?"

"No, I'm not," she is quick to override her last statement. "I'm meeting someone."

"Who?"

"I can't say, Shulk."

"You and your secrets!"

"This isn't a secured network and you know it!"

He tries looking past her at her surroundings. Corrin must be in the back of some limo, as she's currently sitting down, black leather behind her, as she leans forward. Her hair makes a sharp contrast with the darkness, a snowstorm in the middle of an abyss. Shulk sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. She asks - orders, really - that the Syrenet crew disassemble all across the city of Detroit for purposes unknown, only to vanish herself off to God knows where.

"When will you be back?"

"Before night fall." He watches her look past the camera and say something unintelligible that he cannot discern from. The only word he hears is 'private', and his gears tick. Private? _Private what?_ Jet? Security? Baseball cards? Ramen noodle recipe?

Corrin returns to center position on the screen. "Listen, I'm almost at the appointment. I need to talk to you. It's why I called."

He sits up once more. Part of him thinks that it's a repeat of the Mexico-Detroit situation where he and Fiora split ways, and he is to never see his wife again. Why does this bear the same sort of foreboding doom-to-all feel? "Yes?"

"I think the time in the city is coming to an end. I have reason to believe the rebels have tracked us here, and there have been some... developments," he notices how she pauses on the last word, hesitating, her face blanching. What has happened that he does not know about? "In the city and with those in power. It's unsafe to say over this call," she adds, seeing how Shulk goes to interrupt her and demand what developments. "This means that we have to act fast and get Syrenet off the ground here. We need to execute Operation Glass Ceiling."

He is taken aback, so much so that Shulk actually, physically moves his chair away from the desk, violently so that the chair nearly tips over, one wheel having gotten snagged on the carpet. Shulk's heart hammers in his chest. He remembers that day, months ago back in D.C. Oklahoma City and its disaster has taken its toll, everyone is discussing it at home and abroad, and he is called into her office. _Have you ever broken a glass ceiling, colonel?_ Why now? Why _now?_

"Now?" he swallows heavily.

"Now," Corrin nods.

"But Corrin-"

"But, what?" she tilts her head like a cat, emerald eyes gleaming.

"On such a short notice... I- I-"

"You have the flash drive, don't you?" she asks.

"Multiple ones," Shulk stutters over his words slightly. "But the Detroit military... won't they be alerted to it?"

"Not if we do what we rehearsed, commander." How can she be so calm about it all? Corrin lifts her head up, chin pointing in the air with an expression of defiance, but a defiance to what Shulk is unable to pinpoint. "Do you agree, commander?"

"I consent."

He closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. He's been waiting for this order since they arrived in the city. There's so many precautions that have to be taken, and that is what worries him the most. Shulk nods his head, meaning he has cemented himself into this and that there's no way out. He goes to close off the video call when Corrin holds up a hand, meaning to pause.

"Shulk..." she says, her voice a shaky, dangerous whisper.

"Yes, Madam President?" he looks at her expectantly, and even across the web, through this camera, the two still share the connection they've had since day one, a trust that cannot be broken, despite what both think of one another.

Corrin looks up at the roof of the limo, swallowing. He can see the movement of her throat, and the action seems painful, as if the very next sentence the silverette is about to say is like vomiting up sulfuric acid. When her face grazes back to the camera, there are tears in her eyes. He's never seen such a true, painful emotion reflected in the president's eyes, and he's known her longer than anyone else on the Syrenet team, and longer than he ever actually knew Fiora.

"The last time Syrenet went up against Detroit, we lost Fiora, one of the greatest operatives this program ever had," and it causes Shulk to look away. It is as if the woman mentions his wife's name just to get inside his head, just to mess with one last screw so the curly slide that is his brain will tumble into scrapyard pieces that rust over time. "I can't lose you too. Please... please be careful. Someone needs to watch your back. Take Roy with you."

He furrows his eyebrows together. Roy Arcadia had never been part of the plan. "What?"

"You heard me, commander. You'll need someone watching your six. Fill him in on what he needs to know and go. Don't let anyone else know what you're doing, and do not let anyone follow you. Do you understand me, Shulk?"

"I understand, Madam President," and once more he goes to shut the computer off. However, this time, he is the one to pause, to have a second thought, and he can see that it frustrates her slightly, by the increasing furrow of her brow as well. "What if Roy somehow complicates everything? Gets in the way, so to speak?"

"You want to have Detroit pay for what they've done to you and the family you could have had?" she asks, and the fire burns back into his body. It has never hit Shulk right until that very moment that the death of his wife meant the death of the future he could've had with her, as he lost his wife and his child the day she died, since she had been pregnant. Even moreso the reason to be furious. He nods. "This is our only shot. What matters more in the end? Roy or your revenge?"

" _Our_ revenge," he corrects.

She gives a small smile. "Our revenge indeed," Corrin gives him a salute, which in retrospect, looks absolutely stupid. "Godspeed, Alpha Commander Roberts."

The call ends, leaving Shulk sitting in his room back in the dark, with the heaviest load to consider on his mind. Operation Glass Ceiling, in the minutest details, is the exacted plan by the U.S government, exacted by Syrenet, and specifically exacted by Alpha Commander Shulk Roberts and an accomplice to bring an empire to its knees. However, with the way the world has been revolving and the way certain events have erupted, this conjoined crippling of Detroit shall be a sickle to the wheat-grass operation of the Midwestern rebel force if Shulk times it right.

"No pressure or anything..." he tells himself, giving off a nervous laugh.

It's go time.

* * *

After shutting the door to his bedroom, with Roy safely inside, Shulk grabs the map off of his desk, spreading it on the floor. He motions the redhead to step back so the paper can take the full space between the two beds. The map is the complete layout of Detroit, both above and underground. Roy looks at it, almost like a kid in a candy store, except without all the excitement. There are stenciled drawings of roadways and streets all over the parchment paper, erasure marks here and there, a few skyscraper prisms dotting it like chickenpox. Then, in a darker shade, the subway and transit connections, and beneath that, a sewer system with all the proper cannels and channels.

Shulk does want to smirk at Roy's bemused expression. Perhaps more than what he's bargained for, truth be told.

"So... Corrin wants us to do what exactly?" he asks.

"Execute something called Operation Glass Ceiling."

"The same message written on the bathroom mirror in Mac's blood?" Roy shudders again at the recollection, which had just happened that morning. The blood stains are still slightly there, even if Ike goes at them with a power hose and scrubs and scrubs until his fingers bleed.

"The very same."

"What exactly is it? This 'Glass Ceiling'..."

Shulk grimaces. "It's hard to explain..." which happens to be the mantra of the week. Everything is hard to explain, every single damn thing in the entire world - if Detroit is the entire world, at least - but that doesn't matter. "Regardless, it's important, and can help us solve two problems. First off, it will allow us to have some groundwork in establishing the Syrenet branch that we've been grasping at straws for all this time, and secondly, we can wipe the rebel scum that have been chasing us since Oklahoma off the map."

"The rebels?" Now it is Roy's turn to frown. Chicago is fresh for the Syrenet agent, with Zant's blood still mingling with his saliva in the back of his throat, his hands imaginarily gripping around the handle of the knife that he uses to kill the rebel general.

"Corrin has reason to believe that they'll be in Detroit shortly, to probably bring the end of us." He walks around the outer edge of the map, going over to his table. On it is Lucas's AI disk, which is turned on. The AI Unit is laying down on his stomach on the disk, hands curled into fists underneath his chin as he looks over at the map. "Here, in front of you two, is the map of Detroit. This city, this city-state, this... abomination," Shulk makes a face. "In the dark pencil is the main streets, alleys, all the above ground framework. We're here," he uses the laser pointer to circle the compound which is stuck in the farthest away quadrant of the city. "Our objective is to reach something called The Needle, which is here," and the laser goes to the other end of the map, an obelisk-like structure that has an ovulated circle at the very top. "You can see it from any spot in the city, and it is extremely important for our cause."

"Why?" Lucas asks.

"It has broadcasting powers beyond imagination," Shulk answers. "What Corrin can give this city-state as its chops is that they're intelligent when it comes to engineering. It makes some of this Syrenet like technology relate to Mother Teresa as theirs compares to Adolf Hitler in terms of advancement. With the Needle, we can plug into every monitor and camera in the country, allowing us to see the movement of the rebel forces in one swing, _and_ to explain to the people of Detroit that Syrenet needs their help. It will draw the hornets out of the nest and attack us, but we have to be ready."

"How come we haven't been able to head there straight away?" Roy circles the map, looking at it from every angle he can.

"You'd need permission to access it, obviously. Its power is unprecedented in the world of communication. However, Corrin mentioned to me that the governmental power of Detroit has proved to be... difficult, and she's ordered us to forge ahead to using it regardless of what the leaders have to say."

"So, in simpler terms, we're breaking Detroit law?" Lucas shuffles his body to now hanging his legs over the disk.

"Using a device we don't have permission for, yes," Shulk smiles wryly. He turns the laser pointer back on. "Drawn in a different shade are the subway and transit lines that the city has, and beneath that, the sewers. Detroit has a maze of sewers that stretch for miles underground, all connected to points in the city. There's one directly from the compound to the Needle. We have to reach Point A to Point B without getting detected."

"Opposition?" Roy brings up another important point.

"Their military. If we get caught, game over," Shulk says with finality. "We don't want that. Corrin wants you and I to be in our Syrenet suits, as an extra precaution. Because of that, we cannot traverse above ground. That'll be too risky, and the general Detroit populace would smell something fishy in a heartbeat. The subway is too crowded with people, so what do we do?"

"Use the sewers..." Lucas finishes for the commander.

"Precisely."

Shulk takes a deep breath in. There is so much else he could say, so much he could wish to give away, but that will compromise the mission and all he and Corrin have built and dreamed of doing. It's too important of an opportunity to let slip through his fingers like the granules of sand on the beach. Syrenet is not some sort of sand castle that can be wiped out by a wave, nor should anyone expect it to be. It is a mountain that can resist nuclear fire power, and _will_ resist whatever is thrown at it. Detroit, rebels, monsters, ghouls in the night... they're all water off a wing compared to the technological creature, the technological ecosystem that Corrin Etch has created.

His Syrenet suit is lying on his bed, freshly repainted a gleaming gold color, with the visor remaining the same. It glistens in the open sun, armor for a king, armor for a commander who is destined to lead. His fingers graze over the metal, stopping by the insignia of his name swirled into the top of the breastplate. Fiora's initial 'F' used to be there, once upon a time, but he had that completely removed not even a week after her funeral. It would be too painful, _too painful_ to even think about letting her name remain there, no fault of her own, never a fault of her own. He has to tell that to her grave, just so she knows, because if his wife can hear him and believe it, so will he.

He looks over at Lucas, who nods, the blue halo disappearing as Lucas himself vanishes into the AI world needed. Shulk then passes his gaze over to Roy, the redhead standing in the middle of the room, rubbing his arms, looking slightly disconcerted.

"What's the matter?"

"Why can't we tell Ike or Pit or anyone that we're leaving?"

"Corrin's orders." he lies through his teeth. Shulk swears inwardly. The lying is starting to get annoying, even though the name of the game calls for it. He wonders if Roy is going to catch on to all the falsehoods being passed around. There is a lot left unsaid in the conversation between he and Corrin, stuff he understands deep down, even though he wishes he didn't. This is the end, it'll be the end of him and Syrenet if a single aspect of it goes wrong. Should Operation Glass Ceiling work the way it is supposed to, they'll win. They'll all win. Forever, if possible.

Roy rocks on his heels, not saying anything, but instead turning around to grab his Syrenet suit hanging on the wall. Shulk flinches away, thinking of that smart, shy AI Unit that is now a mess of cybernetic parts and digital scraps out in the Internet, garbage of a day and age when Syrenet is weak. Syrenet is not weak anymore, but it is on the rise. He crosses over to the window, pulling back the curtain. The way the compound had been constructed, although it is only two stories, is designed to see all the way down the street, and beyond that with the telescope that is attached to the pane, pointing downwards. He looks into the eye glass.

The street is bustling, busy with construction workers, all dressed in their neon orange jackets, holding 'STOP' signs, the sounds of anvils and hammers and drills and barked orders clashing in the sky like a thunderstorm. Shulk closes the curtain. "I thought it said in the Detroit newspaper that their road construction was canceled," he says.

"It did," Roy answers, having laced his boots on, dressed fully in his own Syrenet suit, still the charcoal red color, with the helmet over it. It is odd that Roy Arcadia decides to not get another AI Unit, having only had Ness in his own hands for less than a week, but Shulk deduces it to being that Ness didn't betray Roy when Link had been torturing him, even when the arms dealer plunges the knife into the agent's leg. "Why?"

"Take a look outside." the commander gestures with his head to the curtain, and Roy replaces him. Meanwhile, Shulk grabs his own helmet off of the table, slamming down his visor, picking up Lucas's disk, and slamming it into the compartment. He hears a whirl inside his head, meaning the suit is turning on and adapting to having Lucas's machinery back into place. When Roy leans back from the telescope, he frowns. "Odd, right?"

"Definitely strange. You said we're not supposed to be seen in order to not arouse suspicion?" Shulk nods. "What's the nearest sewer entrance in the opposite direction?"

"One tenth of a mile down the block," Shulk points backwards with his thumb. Roy passes by him, and the commander is given the full view of the empty disk space again. A resounding wave of pain washes over the blonde, enough to have him grip the table. "Good soldiers follow orders..." he whispers.

The redhead turns. "You say something?"

"No, just got a minor headache," he lies again. Damn his lies to hell. Damn Corrin to hell, for a matter of fact. "I do believe we'll be safe in the sewers. There will be security stations, probably left unoccupied, and an alarm system that Lucas can easily hack into."

"And if we do run into trouble down there?"

Shulk flashes a ghastly smile. "Hope your gun has a silencer on it."

Roy makes a face, slamming the visor down, decked from head to toe in Syrenet gear. The whirring noise inside Shulk's head stopped, meaning Lucas had been fully initialized into the program, a process that for some reason has always excited the AI unit. The boy describes it as a race, where there are gates and gauntlets he has to code through and break through in order to confirm to the Syrenet suit system that he is the specific AI destined for Commander Roberts of Alpha Squad's suit. To Shulk, it sounds quite daunting and tiring, but Lucas shrugs his shoulders, grins, and races off into the sunset with the mission.

 _"You ready to go?" he thinks._

 _"More than ever," Lucas responds cheerfully, still chirping like a sweet nightingale. "How long should this take? Do you need me to be on the entire time?"_

 _"It will be a good four hours at least to get from here to the Needle, given the traverse network of tunnels and passageways. I need you to constantly lock the security system out for me. Think you can do that?"_

 _"Piece of cake!"_

Shulk smiles to himself. That's the AI Unit he knows and loves, not the one who broods and questions his every move, though sometimes the little tyke has every right to wonder all he can about who he is working for. He steps out of the bedroom, looking around, Roy standing in the foyer. Ike and Pit were out back sparring in the yard, and if need be in the end the two needed help, both suits had a distress beacon that'd let anyone near a Syrenet suit or computer with the link attached receive the call.

Secrecy is needed. The mission cannot fail.

"Are you ready?" Shulk asks.

Roy bites on his lower lip, positioning his pistol into the holster by his left hip. "As ready as I'll ever be, I guess."

" _You ready kiddo?_ " he voices his thought inwardly to the boy inside his skull.

" _Ready, commander sir!" Lucas shouts back in full boyishness._

"Then, Alpha Squad, let's move out," Shulk orders.

He looks down somewhat, as Roy finishes suiting up the rest of his weapons. It is time for Detroit to feel the wrath of Syrenet. It is time for the rebel scum to feel the wrath of Syrenet. It is time for everyone in the stupid god forsaken city that killed his wife to understand and bow to the anger of a wounded man who has lost it all. Corrin's name is to be chanted through the streets of the country, a paragon who has restored a nation falling out of grace to its former glory, as if the glory had been lost, even if it never did.

It is to avenge the AI Unit that Shulk had to murder, on the silverette's orders, for Ness's mess-up tied into the whole Detroit ordeal. To get back at a blonde rebel leader who felt it had been necessary to disrupt a governmental action in Oklahoma and once again in Chicago, injuring a commander who has given up everything for the program. It is to return and restore a commander, a man on the outs from his long three years of solitude, depression, and disappointment.

Operation Glass Ceiling is now in effect.

* * *

It _is_ a sewer, that much is known, but Roy does not think it is supposed to smell as bad as it does. Luckily for him and Shulk, the sewage has indeed been blocked for the time being, nothing but silence and the occasional _drip drop_ from a rusty pipe to be the soundtrack in the background. The smell lingers, and Roy can only imagine, with vomit building in his throat, what bacteria is currently crawling over their suits. Pit's intuitive design has the suit itself clean off whatever despicable and foul objects touch it, such as blood, so the armor is constantly clean, which at the very least is a plus and it helps ease the redhead's worry.

However, back to the smell, Roy thinks there must be much more than feces down below. Dead animals, perhaps, a homeless person or twenty to occupy the alleys. It is dark, nearly pitch black save for the dim, dying lights lining the wall every fifty feet or so. The space in between, however, is an abyss where their voices echo, no matter how quiet the two whisper. Lucas is out and about with them as well, this time being projected from Shulk's helm a foot in front of him, the disk's projection hovering in the air with the AI Unit standing upright on it, eyes glazed over, constantly scanning. _That smell!_ Roy is unable to concentrate on anything other than the horrendous smell.

He looks down every so often to stare at the center of his suit, where the distress beacon is placed. Just press it if someone needs to come running to their rescue. Although Roy does not have Ness's voice in his head anymore, which he sorely misses for the matter of two days that he had the guy in his company, it does not entirely make his suit obsolete. He has to manually access the Syrenet abilities off the arm panel when the arm extended, plaiting downwards with his fingers on the complex semantics. The AI Unit's purpose is to primarily have these abilities immediately be on hand, and to see all possible exits, entrances, and pathways known to man from a bird's eye view... so it is not like Roy is at a complete loss.

Roy is a bit back from Shulk, watching his six, as his commander demands he does. It is their first conjoined mission, sorely them two together, as the blonde had ordained all the way back when he first met him. He had been the only other person assigned to the Alpha Squad, after the death of Fiora, and the two never got a chance to kick ass and take names, which saddens Roy to the core. It is strange that the first time he gets to actually work alongside his partner, and boss, and _only_ his boss is a covert mission that he hardly knows anything about.

The air of secrecy surrounding the city is starting to infect the team, he thinks, sadly, in some sort of way. Perhaps for the best, Roy rationalizes, always trying to think of the bigger picture.

Occasionally Roy will look elsewhere on the ground, looking at the tunnel surrounding them. Above his head, the subway system shakes and rattles the tunnel, but as Shulk claims - god, he hopes the blonde is right about this, but when has he proven himself to be wrong? - that the tunnel is steel, iron-rod steel, and there is no way the tunnel will collapse due to a subway tram. On the sides, which puzzles Roy to no end, are these metallic squares, about a foot in diameter and a foot in length, placed ever so often away from one another on both sides. When the two ever get to a crossroad, in which Lucas has to point them in the right direction, a simple pass of the flashlight shows the duo that these slate cubes extend in whichever direction they face. Sometimes, and Roy swears it is not the darkness playing a trick on his eyes, that there's a red dot bleeping from the center of the cube, but he's only seen it happen once or twice in the thirty minutes that they have been down there.

"What do you think they are?" he questions, to Shulk as the two stop to take a rest, swallowing some water saved in their canteens.

Shulk shrugs. "I don't know. Sound absorbers?"

Lucas frowns. "Checking their chemical composition, I have several unknown substances, and what it does contain does not give me any insight onto their purpose," and the boy extends his hand to count on his fingers. "Iron, cobalt, magnesium, and on the inside of the container, they're hollow, filled with hydrogen."

"Hydrogen?" Roy sits up from his spot on the wall. "Why hydrogen?"

"I have no idea, Mr. Arcadia," and Lucas looks quite sad at the prospect of not knowing something.

"Perhaps the city has had them constructed down here _to_ create echoes," Shulk rubs his chin. "Like, if someone gets lost, you clang on the metal to direct you to the nearest security sub-station?"

"Maybe..." but this is not settling well inside the redhead's stomach, it twisting into knots and multiple, painful taut pulls that tug at the laces.

The three trek on again, in silence, and it leaves Roy to think. It's only been twelve hours since the group had woken up to finding Mac's body. He shudders in his suit, the rattle vibrating down his spine and through his toes. It is obvious that the secret service agent had no love for Roy Arcadia, and Roy agrees with that statement in full sanction, but it does not let it bother him, at least not fully. He has to respect - _had_ to respect, he corrects himself - relationships and boundaries, between Mac and Midna. Midna Nye, the woman he has loved for such a long time, to have her back in his grasp and yet still be unreachable, part of the man wants to feel, _desires_ to feel loathsome of the brunette, but all he can feel is remorse and regret that he never tries to make connections faster, earlier on in life. Why kill Mac Sarasota? What does the rebel group achieve by murdering him?

Syrenet has one less fighter, which always matters in terms of numbers, making a small group of warriors actually smaller in comparison. Lower morale, spook them off, all possibilities that run in Roy's mind, but none of them still make any sense. He is devastated, watching the fire consume the boat, Mac's body turned to ashes, a legacy of pride, honor, and respect gone in seconds, all that remains is charred flesh at the bottom of a lake in a country that once could have been presumably called home. Whatever feelings the two may have felt for each other dissolve entirely, and Roy is now wishing there's so much he could've done in trying to better the relationship he could have had. That's all his life has been. Wishes he cannot ever fully capitalize on.

Where does that leave him with Midna? He is never able to gauge the woman's emotional state, and with her trying to run after the boat is nothing less than alarming. Then why did he not try to stop her from going and training by herself? Roy bites down on his tongue. That thought hadn't even crossed his mind, it is wanting to make him turn around and race away. He _has_ to go back and save her. Save her from what? Herself? Roy scoffs, his mind is playing leapfrog with itself, and he's letting it, all because he has no better to do. If the world is ideal, it is Roy's time to strike while the iron is hot, ask Midna out, sweep her off of her feet doing something that the corpse of Mac Sarasota could only long to do from his spot in the highest of heaven or the lowest of hell, but that is not Roy Arcadia's way, and it'll never be his way. How could he do that to someone? How could he do that to himself? How could he do that to her? He has to give her the time to mourn, the proper time to mourn and care and worry. If it takes years for the redhead to get back to her normal self, Roy might, just might, but it is not his call to make.

He is so wound up in his thoughts that he nearly walks into Shulk's raised fist, motioning for him to stop. Roy skids forward on his heels, abruptly catching himself against the rigidness of Shulk's back outlined through the metallic covering of the suit. In front of them is a security station, abandoned by the looks of it.

" _Abandoned or empty?_ " Roy thinks to himself. Only one way to find out, truth be told.

The station is not necessarily in bad condition, looking to still be powered on by the lights and gismos attached to it. Sparks from a few dislocated wires crash on the ground, lighting up the fork in the pathway. Shulk steps up to it, looking down at Lucas, who is cracking his knuckles.

"You ready?" he looks at his friend. Roy's breath hitches in his throat.

"Never been more ready." Lucas's apparition vanishes into the disk, and is transported into the security system console at the station, however the boy's voice still rings out from the disk whenever he speaks. There is a sound of whirring that comes from the command booth, and then, the AI Unit announces, "Control Security Command is online."

"Try command... seventy-three," Shulk says, tapping into the interface on his right arm, beeps and bop noises popping out of the arm. Roy watches with a perplexed look.

"Command seventy-three accepted." The control system lights up brighter now, as if the machine is starting to whirr to life.

"We're in business now..." the commander chuckles to himself. "Scan all open ports."

"Ports one through nineteen are not secure."

"Very good, _very good,_ " Shulk smiles again.

"What does that do?" Roy asks.

"A port is like a channel for airwaves to pass through," Lucas explains from the console, directing his attention to the matter at hand versus what is happening with the security command.

"Please disengage all security locks."

A pause, then Lucas's voice returns. "Command accepted." Another pause. "Command not approved."

" _Fuck..._ " Shulk swears under his breath, but still loud enough for Roy to hear. The redhead's ears flush bright scarlet. He's heard the man say worse, but the way his voice echoes across the sewer system is enough to wake sleeping bears from their hibernation patterns. That can't be good. "But... isn't that their fault command? Uhh... Lucas, try decoupling the security features? Alarms and all that jazz."

"System is compromised."

"Oh you're shitting me," the commander has taken off his helmet by this point, with Lucas staying online. He runs a hand through his hair. "This just can't happen easily, can it?" he sighs.

All of a sudden, the control station began making a rapid fire sound, a bleating alarm similar to that of a goat's bleat whenever it is injured. Lucas's voice rises into a whine, near-like fever pitch. "Command station seven is compromised. Accessing sounds and codes for authorities. Protocol not engaged. Security not engaged. System is disengaging from mainframe. Security coupling has failed. Activity may cease if unwarranted behavior continues."

"Uh-oh..." Shulk swears. "That's not good." Then, as if on cue, the wailing goat bleat gets louder, almost akin to the screeching of a dragon from a fantasy program. It is so loud that Roy slams his hands over his ears, hearing the ghastly echo through his helmet, through the visor. The sound will not stop. "That's the main _fucking_ alarm!" the commander shouts, head whirring above him. The noise echoes, it echoes so loudly down the halls, as if there is an imaginary beast soaring towards them. "It's connected to every substation in the city. If there's anyone back in the security rooms, the whole place just lit up like some damn Macy's Day Parade Christmas tree!"

Lucas yells out over the commotion. "I know what to do!" and then there's a blinding surge of light, the lights of the security station fizzing out. The noise dissipates as fast as it had began, and then with a triumphant voice, the AI Unit declares. "A power surge solves all of our problems!"

The AI Unit's disk glows a bright blue once more, as Lucas transports himself back to Shulk's hands, standing there with his hands on his hips, a goofy smile across his pale face. Shulk smiles warmly at his partner-in-crime, Roy letting his hands down from his ears. Perhaps, Roy tells himself, the alarm had only been on for less than thirty seconds and that the Detroit military may find it to be an erroneous error and not investigate. That is, if the people of Detroit are as stupid as they look.

Roy exhales a shaky breath he had no idea he had been holding. "So... what did we just do?"

"We," and Shulk's voice mirrors the same triumphant tone that Lucas held in his own. "Just simultaneously turned on and off Detroit's security systems, meaning they're blind in the dark on any movement that their systems could've detected. Security cameras, alarms... all of it. And, when we get to the Needle, we'll have the same power in our hands that they once did." The commander looks down at his AI Unit. "You did good, kid."

Lucas opens his mouth to reply when a low guttural noise came from one of the passageways. Goosebumps erupt all over Roy's arms, he is seized by a shiver that radiates across his entire body. The noise spreads, going through the floor, the ceiling, up the walls, and all the cubes on the walls light up, however the light is not red like Roy had initially thought, but a dull amber, as if there were two eyes peering through a cloud of amber. Shulk and Roy are the insects.

"Uh... let's go back the way we came..." Roy whispers. "I don't like this."

Above them, though it is not the subway that is making the noise, a clipping sound rushes back and forth above their heads, a constant chittering noise, with a few sounds dispersed that could be gunshots. Roy's blood runs ice cold. He doesn't like this.

"What-" Lucas opens his mouth.

"I need you to go away," Shulk says, his voice low.

"But-"

The commander does not give the AI Unit the time to protest, turning the disk off entirely, placing the soundless piece of metal back into his head. Whatever is surrounding them... Lucas cannot be compromised. He's too valuable. Roy tenses, going to place a hand on his weapon. What have the two gotten themselves into? What sort of hellishness have they unleashed by stepping into the Detroit sewers? What darkness lurks in the sewers of Detroit?

There's a pause, as if someone is waiting with bated breath to speak, and neither Syrenet agent know what to do except wait. Wait, and they shall receive an answer. A pop comes from somewhere, as if a loudspeaker or intercom is being turned on, and then, a voice speaks. A voice that runs Roy's blood cold. A voice that Shulk remembers, a voice that Shulk _recognizes._ It couldn't be...

"Commander Shulk Roberts of the Syrenet Alpha Squad. It is a pleasure to meet you," the voice intones.

"I don't know if I can say the same for you," Shulk snarks back.

"What your AI Unit did was mightily impressive. May I have the chance to speak to him? He sounds like a highly intelligent individual."

"I'm afraid he's off-limits, sir." It isn't Shulk that speaks, but Roy. All of his hair is standing on edge. Least, Roy assumes the voice is a man without having a voice changer, given that the tone is deep and suave sounding, as if the man is talking with a spoonful of yogurt stuck in his mouth. "He's resting. Being, you know, amazing and all."

"Last I checked, Mr. Roy Arcadia, employee of the Alpha Squad, I was not speaking with you," the voice snaps. Roy widens his eyes.

"How do you know our names?" Shulk asks.

"That is hardly your concern, Mr. Roberts."

"What do we call you?" Roy shouts.

"You may call me... Ganondorf, Mr. Arcadia, but please, respect my wishes and do not speak to me again, or I'll simply ignore you. I came to have a conversation between Mr. Roberts and myself. I did not include you in this equation, sir."

Roy looks over at the blonde, gesturing wildly with his hands. Shulk shrugs, and the two sit down against the walls, quietly. The redhead closes his eyes, placing his head in between his legs. Whomever this stranger is, this Ganondorf clown, does not know the necessity of having Roy Arcadia in the conversation. It's all before Shulk pokes the wrong animal and has claws slash his throat open, blood pouring down porcelain skin.

Shulk claps his hands together, smirking. "Well, Ganondorf, I'm right here! What do you want with me?"

"I have to say that I am still impressed by the Syrenet antics you and your president have gotten yourselves into. Detroit has been boring, it really needs your company."

"You know of our Syrenet mission here? Are you part of the Detroit military?"

"On the contrary, Mr. Roberts," Ganondorf clucks with his tongue. "I am one of their political leaders. Actually, a correction, forgive me, my mind sometimes... I am _the_ political leader of Detroit. The other members of the Council of Thirteen are dead, I'm afraid."

"How did they die?"

"I murdered them all in front of your president, vice president, and FBI director, commander Roberts," the stranger says nonchalantly. Roy can imagine the man sitting in an office chair, picking grapes off the vine and simply tossing them into his mouth.

The redhead's eyes are bugging out of his skull in the position he's sitting in. A political leader murdered his other companions? And now this same political entity wants to speak with them after scaring them to death in a location they know nothing about? Roy jumps to his feet, hands immediately going to his holster, whipping the pistol out, pointing it at the ceiling. Shulk motions his hands outward as a caution, the two speaking through their eyes.

" _You don't know where he is. Let's not provoke him, Roy,_ " his eyes speak, and then aloud, to Ganondorf. "I must say, sounding from your voice, seems like something a slimy creature like you would do."

"Compliments and insults will get us nowhere, commander," Ganondorf intones sadly, though there is a hint of amusement hiding behind it in the inflection of his voice. "And please, Mr. Arcadia, lower your weapon. I'm speaking to you through an intercom that is around the entire sewer system. You cannot bodily harm me. You've already alerted to the entire army of your unwanted presence in the country. Do not give them more reason to find you."

"You're bluffing!" Roy shouts.

To his credit and honor, if Ganondorf even has any to begin with, he ignores Roy's statement, the redhead's exclamation bouncing around the walls like a gunshot, the anger fading off into the black distance. "Where were we, commander?"

"Saying that you had to speak with us. Why?" Shulk crosses his arms together.

"Ah," Ganondorf says, his voice highly pensive for a man sounding as threatening as his, despite being so calm and rational in appearance. "Right. Well, Mr. Roberts, I have to say that you have stepped into a place where you do not belong. I opened the gates of the greatest city that will ever be to your silverette queen because I could. I have given her permission to allow Syrenet into its boundaries, since my fellow council members did not seem to agree with me. A few did, but they were all simpletons deep down, and I do not need stupidity on my team."

"So are you actually our ally?" the commander frowns. What, in God's holy name, is going on? Roy needs a Xanax.

"You could say so," the council member muses. "Unfortunately, none of your friends seem to think so, President Corrin herself being the top instigator. However, a mind like mine does not need to concern itself with the opinions of sheep, just their love and adoration. But, back to my original point... you, Mr. Roberts are in place you do not belong. Not the city, as I have given you my permission to be here, but these sewers. I know what you are planning to do, commander, as you are not a sphinx. The Needle is something you cannot reach, I'm afraid. At least... not through these means. You have to earn it. By fighting your way through the military forces above ground."

"Threats you cannot enact upon are empty threats," Shulk says.

"Do fear my wrath, commander," Ganondorf chides, his voice sounding so disappointed. Roy flashes Shulk a warning sign. _Abort! Abort! Abort dammit!_

Shulk gives a cocky grin. "And what of my wrath, councilor? I have been through more than you can imagine."

"I can imagine quite a lot, Mr. Roberts. But, you still try to evade the topic matter at hand. I need you to leave these sewers. Claim what Corrin has demanded you claim above ground. Leave me here. Operation Glass Ceiling is something she's wanted to have happen for the longest time, correct? Why don't you do it in a way that will make her proud."

A single thought races through Roy's head. How would this Ganondorf know about Operation Glass Ceiling? Did _he_ murder Mac? The redhead would not put it past this specter, this fool, this ghoul who robs blind people in the dark. There has to be no other option. Roy can see that Shulk is processing the same exact thoughts as he, but Roy can also tell that the game the commander wants to play is not on the same wavelength as his.

"Gee, it sounds like you're afraid of something, Ganondorf."

"On the contrary, Mr. Roberts, I'm afraid that I may have to end you and your friend's life," Ganondorf chuckles lowly, a menacing cackle that reminds Roy of the Disney villains from a childhood past. "You are no longer safe in your sanctuary that you call a dismal headquarter building back in D.C, commander. You are not in that shoddy compound above ground in the farthest sector of the city from The Needle. You are in Detroit's sewers, _Shulk,_ " Roy's blood runs ice cold as the councilor uses the commander's first name, all the empathy and kindness in Ganondorf's voice breaking. "My realm. My depths. My kingdom, where _here_ I command and rule. I do not like strangers. I do not want to harm you."

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to let that threat hang on read, councilor," Shulk says with a sigh, rolling his eyes. "You are fun and all, but we really must go. Come on Roy, leave this charlatan to his parlor tricks that he considers to be magic."

He barely gets a step in, Shulk that is, before Ganondorf continues speaking. "You do really disappoint me, commander. Have I not impressed you already? I've known of your movements, every single thought you have brought to light while staying in Detroit, and even now you doubt me? I am a god, Mr. Roberts. I know all. I see all. I _am_ all."

"A bunch of bullshit," Shulk spits.

"Is that so? Ignore me and I'll prove you wrong, Shulk."

"Don't listen to him," Roy advises, placing his gun back into his holster.

"Such a shame..." Ganondorf sighs. "It turns out I may end up having to kill you, Mr. Roberts, and your friend, Mr. Arcadia." A pause, a long pause. "Just like the one you cherished so much."

Shulk stops dead in his tracks, Roy freezing up as well. The two lock eyes. Roy acknowledges what must be running through their heads. Cherished? The usage of past tense suggests death. Who does Shulk cherish? Fiora... how did... how-

Whatever composure the commander of Alpha Squad had felt dissipates, and his hands already start to shake. "What did you say?"

"Have I struck a nerve, Mr. Roberts?" Roy can picture Ganondorf's smug smile.

"What. Did. You. Say!" Shulk screams this time, glaring up at the ceiling.

"I'm surprised no one has ever told you," the councilor says dismissively. "I'm sure you heard the story, haven't you? Our precious city, the best city and country that has ever existed and ever will exist aspires to split from the Union. Corrin, freshly in power, tries monitoring the escalating confusion, and when we bring violence, so does she. Syrenet is sent to stop it, _sent_ to stop the council I very well sat on. Your wife, Mr. Roberts, if I recall, had been the ambassador to try and soothe things over. Except, commander, as you very well know, she died..." Roy's heart begins to beat faster. "She was with child, if I remember. You remember what her body looked like, didn't you? Her throat torn open, jagged bits of metal poking in and out?" Shulk's face loses all color. "Her spine cracked in many places, broken ribs by the double digits... her fingers and legs bent in awkward directions too complex to be human... and you buried her. You buried her and forgot about her by coming here. What was her name again?"

"Don't you dare..." the commander whispers lowly, a threatening voice spilling outwards.

"Ah yes, Shulk, it has not fleeted me. _Fiora._ Your wife's name was Fiora, Fiora Roberts. Shame. Such a shame that she died so young."

Roy's heart is beating a thousand miles a minute. What does he do? What does _anyone_ do? How does one process what is happening? How can anyone process anything that is happening to them in this moment? He wants to puke.

"How do you know all this?" Shulk is shaking visibly with rage. "HOW DO YOU KNOW!"

"It's as I told you," Ganondorf says simply. "I know everything that happens in my city. In my realm, in my sewers. It happened here, actually, in these sewers. Her demise. The very same waters you walk in, the same walls you are choked by..." and then there's another pause. "However, I must say, it was a fun thing to witness. As I plunged each piece of metal through her back. I heard her scream. I heard her say she is with child. I killed the babe myself, commander, for she stepped into my realm and thought she could fight me." Shulk vomits all over the sewer, and Roy nearly does too, but the councilor, the monster... the _thing_ that murdered Fiora Roberts continues chugging on. "She pleaded with me, commander, like someone who has nothing else to live for. That she wanted to live in peace. She cried out your name multiple times, as she died, commander. She died painfully. She died alone. And you couldn't save her. Sad, quite sad."

"You're going to pay for what you've done!" Roy decides to step back up to the plate again.

"As you can tell, commander, _we_ have a lot to discuss. A lot to go over in person. I hope you can distract yourself for a bit to come and chat with me. Your suicide mission can wait, as you're such a pitiful thing that you have to have a mission to feel obligated to things," the voice of Ganondorf's seems to get fainter and fainter with every second. "We will meet, here in the sewers, and we will talk. Alone. I am waiting, commander."

The carbineer clipping sound resumes, dancing above Roy and Shulk's heads. Ganondorf's voice still echoes around them, a malevolent whisper, a chill in their bones, and it is cold to Roy's core. What does he do? What can he do? Shulk wipes his mouth, frozen, bent over, hands clutching his knees till his knuckles are ghost white. Roy tentatively approaches the commander.

"Shulk? Shulk?" he asks.

The gaze staring back at the redhead is haunting, diamond eyes losing all hope, all love, all reasoning. "He- Ganondorf... that- that _monster_ killed my wife! He murdered my wife!" the man starts to pace, his face distorting into a snarl. "For years I wondered! It was him, that _beast!_ We go to him, Roy, we go to him and we _fucking_ kill him!"

The rage is almost, somewhat in an odd way, inspiring, and Shulk stalks off into the darkness, Syrenet suit on and gleaming in the light. Roy places a hand back on the holster of his pistol, following his commander into the darkness.

Ganondorf's call still hangs in the air, poisonous, lecherous, painful.

The darkness persists.

* * *

The sunlight is out in full effect outside, on the outskirts of Detroit. A hill overlooks the city, beautiful, emerald glades of grass milling together as the wind blows through them. Standing on the hill is Sheik Braring, the young rebel leader basking in the glory that is the city-state of Detroit. It. Is. Beautiful. She has to give it that, always has to give it that. The city may have cost America a headache in everything else, but these people did build some damn impressive looking structures.

She closes her eyes, outstretching her arms. Sheik bathes in the sunlight, the warmness spreading over her arms. All of her life has been building for this moment, for this one very moment. After the disaster that is Chicago, even with the maiming of a commander, _and_ the fact that the project is abandoned for that city, the spirit of the organization seems to remain, it is not broken, and it infuriates her. Here she is, putting all of her efforts into something, and they're going to waste. No longer going to happen.

Sheik regroups. Takes a few days to lick her wounds, and immediately knows where Corrin, the poisonous viper that she is, is heading to next. What better place than Detroit? If you're unable to establish residency in a country that will not have you, what better place than a foreign dignitary close to home, a place that had just been home recently, to use as the test run? The very thought burns the rebel to the core, but like a predator who never loses their eyes on the prize, that terrified deer shitting itself in the grass, she leaps.

It has been quite simple actually. Have a few of her rebel militia groups, a good... four hundred or so go into the city, posing as construction workers, with their very special package given to them. Not the package she had received at her apartment a few weeks ago, but the package bought out of Link Collins's hands - well, Sheik prefers the word _stolen,_ which had been the reason behind the Portland attack - to give Syrenet an ending it deserves. To snuff the rats of Detroit like the vermin they are, and alongside the traitors that live in the gleaming citadel of fakery, they'll be executed. Detroit humiliates America by existing. Sheik Braring shall be the Valkyrie that rides in on a winged horse, her Pegasus, and destroys all. It's her destiny, it's her right.

A commander of hers, but not Zant - _damn him,_ she snarls, _damn that redhead Syrenet agent to the seventh hell for killing my best_ \- steps up alongside her, the remaining forces behind them. He hands her a remote. The package is spread all over the city. Underground, above ground, in buildings, everywhere she sees fit to place it, as there is to be hell to pay. They're not cameras. Not even close. The remote could select which sectors and at which level to ignite, should she choose to have hysteria and panic be widespread or tightly put together.

Sheik smiles. "We've done it. We've finally done it."

If only her father could see her now. He'd be so proud.

Elsewhere, actually in the city, Snake Karlo and Robin Wyndel walk, their steps paced together, Snake rubbing his head, trying to batter away at his cellphone. The sun is a different kind of warm on his skin, almost foreign, but he tries not to think about it. Robin is trying to keep up with the FBI director, but the man is in such a hurry that he can't keep his words straight.

"What are you doing?" Robin demands.

"Trying to get ahold of Corrin," he snaps back. "She won't pick up her phone, email, or text messages."

"What happened back in the apartment?"

"Ganondorf came to speak with me," Snake says, but it is as if he has said something in passing, and not that it is important.

"What?" Robin shrieks, grabbing the director by the arm, causing him to swivel around. "He _what?_ "

"Spoke to me. Had something urgent to share. Something about Corrin. I-"

"Did he hurt you?"

"No. I felt trapped, but it was him talking to me through my earpiece... like he was in my consciousness."

"What did he say?"

"He said that Corrin was leaving. She had a business meeting with some leader from Canada she hadn't told us about and that it would-" Snake beginning to tell the story, the two climbing up a staircase to a walkway bridge overlooking one of Detroit's highways. "I-" he stops speaking suddenly.

Robin furrows her eyebrows together. "What?"

"Who are all those people?" Snake points behind the vice president, causing her to turn around.

Indeed like Snake says, there is a group of people amassed on the hill outwards on the horizon, basking in the sun, a mismatch of colors dancing in the beams of light. Green, black, brown, cardinal red, oceanic blue, American flags in some of their hands. The group is not far away, a force that Snake estimates to be five thousand strong, at least. Where's his gun?

"Who- who are they?" Robin grips tighter onto Snake's arm.

Snake swallows his fear. "Rebels."

Closer to them than she thought, stands Midna Nye, fishing through her gym bag for her phone. It has been several hours since Corrin gave her leave to go into the city and train. She needs a walk, she needs a drink, she needs to fight something or someone. A punching bag proves to be a worthy opponent. Unknown to her, to Midna, is Snake and Robin on a bridge overlooking the hill. Unknown to Midna, her nemesis stands out there, out there in the emerald laden hill, smirking, holding a remote to cause the end all be all for the city of Detroit.

Midna looks up, eyes squinting at the sun. She's sitting down at a bench in a park, and she looks back down to fish for her phone, then suddenly upwards again. When did all those trees get there? Where there trees on the horizon beforehand that she hadn't noticed? It causes the redhead to stand up, hands going to her back pocket where her gun is placed.

Through the clearing of the park, where one large oak tree stands, out in the distance, is a group of people. They are not trees. Midna squints harder. It should be impossible to see them, to make out any of them, yet she _can,_ she can, and her eyes seize a familiar color.

Blonde. Beach blonde, a glass of lemonade, sand, the peals of sunshine. She sees. She sees, and she hates. She sees, she hates, and she is consumed in a rage.

"Sheik..." Midna hisses.

Back on the hill, unknown that three particularly dangerous people have noticed her presence, Sheik stands, still basking in the sunlight. It is the last tranquil, peaceful moment of the evening, before it ends in a cascade of fire, people screaming, and a shower of blood. The loss of life is terrible, Sheik rationalizes to herself, but it needs to be done with the least amount possible if there are those who have to die. Syrenet deserves to be ended, the poison ripped out root and stem, and Detroit, bless the country's poor soul, has never been innocent in any of this, never innocent, and now it houses an enemy, enabling the destruction.

The cubes that are spread everywhere across the city, the same cubes Shulk watches be implanted in the street from the compound, the same ones Roy does not understand the need of, the same one Sheik holds in her hand as a prototype... are Link Collins's personal invention.

A bomb.

Sheik lifts the remote high above her head, the rebel force behind her letting out a large shout. She smirks to herself. " _Let Detroit and Syrenet quake in their boots at that._ "

Then, she presses down on the remote.

"Boom."

The world erupts. The ground shakes, and fire leaps into the sky as she detonates two above ground sectors of the bombs, sectors three and five. Sheik can already hear the terror, she can already hear the pain. It is glorious.

She motions her hand forward, and then the masses behind her surge forward. It is a firework show, as the bombs explode, as the glass buildings crumble, as Detroit fades.

Sheik keeps smiling as the world blurs by her, a mass of people, a single embodiment focused on one goal.

Syrenet's reckoning is here.

* * *

 **Holy shit we need a moment. There we are you guys, that was Chapter #32: Darkness in the Sewers. Yep. It's happening. The real beginning of the end. You can obviously tell why I couldn't wait for this chapter? There's so much goodness in these last two scenes, that I don't even know where to begin. I don't, but we'll start with Ganondorf.**

 **Ganondorf is Fiora's murderer. He admits to it. And Shulk has a reckoning to pay. What do you think Glass Ceiling is actually planned to do? On the surface, you think one thing, but there is so much that will happen in the next six chapters that I don't think you are prepared for. But, back to Ganondorf, he is a villain that I am loving to write. His coldness, his anger, his fear... I am afraid to say I do like him on the terms that he is a joy to mold. He wishes to speak with Shulk alone, but obviously our blonde commander is bringing Roy along for the ride. It'll go swimmingly right? I think that conversation may be my favorite part of this story so far, and there are moments that will top it, I guarantee you.**

 **Where is Corrin going, and why didn't she tell anyone where she was going? What do you think Ganondorf told Snake, with what the FBI director has said? A lot of questions, I know, but you have to keep these things in mind, because there will be a lot happening all at once you have to keep track of. Imagine how it is for me.**

 **The ending... Sheik has arrived to Detroit, and she's bringing the full fledged force with her. Think all the way back to Chapter #6: Lucid Operations, when Link (remember him? Bet you all didn't think the story would evolve the way it has, didn't you?) called Corrin because he found out that the Western group of rebels against Syrenet raided a compound of his in Portland, Oregon? This was that reason... it's just shown up super late. I bet you all think Sheik is insane, and I have plans for her that I don't think any of you will like, since there's a crossroad in her character I have to reach, and we'll discuss it when we get there. Midna, Robin, and Snake are caught in this rebel invasion, in this crossfire, and it is going to be epic. Currently, only Pit and Ike are safe, as Marth is still in a hospital, wounded, and Corrin is MIA. Things are going to happen on a grand scale.**

 **I must say, just thank you. I had a blast writing this chapter in about five hours between two days... and god it has been worth it. Please review! I would love your thoughts on the chapter, specifically with the long section that involves the trio of Roy, Shulk, and Lucas in the sewer, and then the subsequent conversation with Ganondorf. I shall see you again with the next chapter, Chapter #33: Mortar Mess, sometime soon, before the month is over. You won't want to miss it. I love you guys so much! Have a great day! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	33. Chapter 33: Mortar Mess

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #33: Mortar Mess. And ooh boy this chapter and subsequent ones are going to be crazy. Last chapter was explosive as hell, and I got to say, there's a lot that went down. Corrin is somewhere unknown, she ordered Shulk to commence Operation Glass Ceiling with Roy, both Syrenet soldiers encounter Ganondorf in the sewers, who admitted to killing Fiora, and Sheik with her Midwestern rebel arm, sieges the city of Detroit with Robin, Snake, and Midna caught in the cross-fire. Review replies!**

 **Green Phantom Queen- Already replied once, but again, again, thank you for reviewing this for the review game! I'm so glad you enjoyed the chapter, as I put a lot of work into it, and all of your compliments were so sweet, thank you my goodness. I am happy you are now reading the piece from the beginning, with a few spoilers given you know some things ahead of time, but regardless, so glad to have you on board for this epic.**

 **SeththeGreat- It is because of your review in particular that it has taken a long time to write this chapter and review the plot of the chapters going forward, which I say is a good thing. I am glad that you like the characterizations of the other characters you listed (I'd be interested in hearing your full opinion on Corrin's character, giving what you had said), but yes, I do need to revise Shulk. I have to say, unfortunately, the way the plot will be headed, I don't think in these last eight chapters I can expand** ** _too_** **much on him, but I definitely tried working on that and I hope you notice it.**

 **Metroid-Killer- Shit is happening. This is the most explosive and dramatic piece I've ever written and I seldom think anything will top it from my own creativity. That Ganondorf confrontation you're talking about... hold your thoughts on that. Corrin is a jack-of-all-trades, I'd say, and an amazing actress. You can't tell what she's going to do.**

 **CrashGuy01- Ganondorf indeed, though all the not so subtle foreshadowing hints I laid throughout Arc 3 should've spelled that out, I think. You think Shulk is going to meet a grisly end by trying to fight the cyborg creation? Interesting. Yeah, there's been a lot that I imagine had I not kept mentioning them that Link, Ness, and Cloud are kind of forgotten. They're all stepping stones.**

 **Derick Lindsey- You and I are on matching wavelengths! Sheik is a terrorist, that I will admit, but with the way her character is going, as you will all eventually see, it's going to open up a minor discussion. Most of the cast is in trouble, except for Ike and Pit, but if you know me as an author, everyone gets thrown in the ring once and awhile. Who do you think is going to get killed? Will more than one person get killed? Interested on your thoughts, and so glad to know you're excited, because I am too!**

 **This chapter is going to be long. Looking at the outline, I have six plot points I have to get across this chapter, which don't fit anywhere else, so buckle down and enjoy. Some sections will be shorter than others, as an FYI. Here it is, Chapter #33: Mortar Mess.**

* * *

"Shulk!"

No response. The house falls quiet after Ike's echo dies down. The commander paces through the rooms, eyes peering around the corners, searching, a constant search.

He cups his hands around his mouth. "Shulk! Roy! Are either one of you here?"

Elsewhere in the makeshift compound, the commander hears the footfall of Pit, who is running through all of the rooms, probably out of breath, frantically searching. The two were out back, firing their guns at makeshift targets from a few beer cans that Ike is willing to let go of, since after all, it is just beer, hardly a complication. When the two come back inside, just a few minutes ago, the bluenette is perturbed down to his core to find that the compound is abandoned by everyone except them. He knows that Corrin is out for a meeting, Robin and Snake out to look at property, and Midna given the appropriate time and space to clear her head... but it does not explain where the duo tag-team of Alpha Squad is, and that Lucas is also missing, alongside their Syrenet suits. Corrin specifically bans the wearing of the suits in public without being on official Syrenet business, so there is only one likely explanation.

Ike also hears the technician now turned Syrenet commander doing his rounds of yelling out their messing comrades' names. He is standing in the empty living room, the TV turned off, coffee mugs from earlier that morning still empty and brown-stained, pillows ruffled, but the silence is starting to get eerie. Pit regroups with Ike back in the room, his mahogany hair plastered to his forehead, as he is covered head to toe in sweat from their workout, and with the race around the compound.

"Any luck?" he asks.

The commander of Charlie squad shakes his head in dissent, causing Pit to throw his hands up in the air. "Great. Everyone is missing. There's no note. No one will pick up their phones. What's going on?"

"I don't know, Pit," Ike exhales.

All of this is shrouded in mystery, he thinks. Ever since the group arrived in Detroit, it is like the city is doing its best to confound and puzzle the governmental team at every step. For the record, which Ike will write down on some official document if given the chance, he is successfully bamboozled beyond belief, at the point where he runs a hand through his hair and sighs, sitting down on the couch.

" _Come on Ike Forgenson,"_ he tells himself inwardly, in his head, mentally pushing himself to think. " _This is not what it seems like. Just a freak occurrence, everyone is fine. We should be good. Where do you think Shulk and Roy are?"_

Pit sits down on the couch likewise, up against one of its arms, cracking his back on the curve. The sun is shining through all the open windows, and even with the air conditioning on, it still seems unbearably hot. Ike wants to visit Marth in the hospital once more before the end of the day, to drop off the ex-commander's visor and suit, just to have, and so he could speak to Lucina if he ever gets bored. It's a hospital. _Of course,_ Marth has to be bored.

"Where do you think they are?" Pit asks once more, as if he hasn't asked that same question a thousand times.

"I honestly have no idea, Pit, where Shulk and Roy could be."

"With Corrin, perhaps?"

"They would have left with her, if they were supposed to go."

"Out with Midna?"

"She was gone way before we even started training, and the two of them were here before we started training." Ike gets up, running a hand across his face, feeling the stubble of his chin, rough and coarse like his brain patterns on this matter. "They must've left recently and we were so engrossed in what we were doing that we didn't know."

The two sit stumped, with Ike tapping his foot impatiently on the wooden flooring of the compound. All possibilities flow through his head, yet none of them make sense except for one that he is starting to not like as he continues thinking about it. The only piece that had been left behind is Shulk's computer, but it is password protected, and Pit feels it would be... sacrilegious or something if he is to crack and hack into the computer system, but at the same time, the bluenette highly denies that it'd do them any good to see Shulk's computer. It wouldn't be the clue to where they went.

Their Syrenet suits are gone. Weapons in their respective rooms have disappeared. Lucas's AI Unit disc is not in the compound. Roy and Shulk are not on the premises. No note. No explanation. No blood. No sign of a struggle. Just as if the two Syrenet workers had vanished off the face of the Earth and that there is no way to track them... Ike's eyes widen as his mind peruses over that particular fragment of thought. " _No way to track them..._ "

"No way to track them..." he whispers aloud, rubbing his chin.

Pit looks up, having been inside his own pensive prison for the past few minutes. "What was that?"

Ike turns his gaze to the technician, patting his knee rapidly, eyes wide and alert. "Since you created the Syrenet suits that we use, wouldn't you want to keep a tag on where your merchandise and creations were?" Pit nods, not seeing where this path is going. "Did you bring your computer with you, or is back at headquarters?"

Pit dangles his head down a bit, frowning at Ike. "Do you think I'd leave on a Syrenet mission without my computer? Of course I have it."

"Wouldn't you have a beacon or tracking system installed in the computer? For all of our suits and things like that?"

The technician's eyes widen, and he comically places both hands on the side of his head. The two stare at each other, just for a second, while their brains are interconnected in a rare moment of intelligence. Pit leaps up from the couch, so fast in fact that he stumbles, his feet slipping on the wooden floor. Ike watches bemusedly as the man with wings clamors around the compound into his room, before dashing back out, lugging his computer with him. It is a laptop - Ike uses the two nouns interchangeably, which for some reason irritates Pit, yet the tech whizz says nothing - in a larger size than usual. Pit rests it on the coffee table in front of the couch, flipping open the screen.

The bright pearl light causes Ike to shield his eyes a bit, before Pit lowers the screen's brightness down some. His fingers clack away on the keyboard, the sound causing chills to slide down Ike's spine. He's always loved that sound, that harmonic noise of creativity being ushered out, which he finds ironic given he believes there to not be a single artistic cell in his entire body. Pit changes windows a bit, before pulling up a program that Ike is unable to really decipher any of the electronic or coding semantics. It is a column log, perhaps a bit spreadsheet like, with the Syrenet members names. Not just those on the Detroit mission, but the Syrenet teams all across the country and the globe, focused on their other missions. Ike realizes, with a pang, that he hasn't spoken to any of the commanders, such as the commander of Delta squad or Zeta squad since the Oklahoma City travesty, and that he has no idea if Corrin has made the actions of the first three single man squads known to the others spread elsewhere, who must be confused from all the action happening around them.

Next to the name of the Syrenet employee is the name of their AI Unit, and next to that is a column reading _Registered._

"What's the third column mean?" he asks.

Pit's eyes are searching the screen as he's typing on the keyboard. "Registered meaning that the AI Unit is in use. Lucas is off, which means he's currently dormant, so he's not on."

"How do you know he's not... registered?"

"The color of the box is gray," Pit points at the screen, which indicates exactly what he's saying. A few of the boxes were blinking green, which Ike assumes to be that the AI Unit is projecting onto the disc in their normal blue holographic image, like Lucas does whenever he's in use. One of the boxes is, however, blinking a dark, deep red. It is next to Roy's box, with Ness's name under the AI Unit.

"Ness... is... red..." Ike says sadly. He remembers that painful conversation with Roy at the hospital. The redhead is furious at the events that happened in Boston, Pit has to bear the mournful news that Ness is decommissioned, and all the new kid on the block can do is snap at them with mandible-like jaws, all the while crying and throwing pillows around the room. Yes, the commander uses hyperbole, but he feels like it is necessary to do so.

"Destroyed or forever defunct," Pit frowns. "And since Roy has not asked for a replacement, nor demanded one truth be told, Ness is staying in the system until he's replaced. Which- which may be never, as far as I know."

"Can you find out where Lucas is?"

Pit does some more typing on the keyboard, and a picture of Earth appears on the screen. A satellite image, which is what Ike believes it to be. The picture continues to zoom in closer, zooming in where the Earth now takes up the entire border and none of the outer space around it. Then it zooms to the Western hemisphere, North America, the United States, the state of Michigan, furthering into the country of Detroit - Ike is weirded out by that thinking pattern - and down into a grid-like picture of the city-state of Detroit, with a yellow icon blinking on the map.

"There," the brunette says with finality, a tone of triumph in his voice. For once, an invention of his own finally seemed to work. Only took a few errors and an entire screw-up in Chicago for this to become a reality. "Lucas is there."

"And where's there? I don't think that helps us."

Pit uses the mouse to zoom in, eyes scanning the screen. He frowns, moving his head back from it. "Huh... that's strange. The system says that Lucas's disc is currently underground."

"Underground?" Ike repeats, his voice incredulous. "Like... underground, _underground?_ The only place like that here in Detroit is their sewer system," he places a hand under his chin, starting to get a headache. "What would compel Roy and Shulk to take an underground route through the sewers?" he murmurs to himself, and then aloud, to Pit, "Any idea of a possible direction?"

"The AI Unit disc is automatically programmed to input possible destinations, when it's scanning for enemies during fights where the Syrenet worker needs coverage in getting to a safe vantage point. In non-combative mode, using a speaker, you, meaning the AI Unit, plots their own location. Lucas plotted down..." a pause while Pit reads the screen. "The Needle of Detroit. Needle? Where is that?"

"Just past the business district on the map," the bluenette realizes, having leaned in to look at the screen himself.

As Ike says this, the ground rumbles, and the compound shakes. It causes him to lose balance, stumbling down on his ass, using a table to hold his grip. Pit clutches his computer close to his chest while the rumbling continues, the coffee mugs falling onto the wood and shattering. The technician squeezes his eyes shut, trying to drown out the noise. Something else, another sound, is picked up in Ike's ears. He grits his teeth, pulling himself up while the shaking gets weaker, and the other noise gets louder. He cocks his head somewhat. Are those explosions and gunfire that he's hearing? Ike manages to get to one of the windows facing the street out towards the heart of Detroit's downtown.

What he sees is a warzone. Smoke billows into the sky, and occasionally he'll see the glimmer of some sort of rocket fly in the air before colliding with a building and explode. Ike steps back as a decent sized skyscraper gets torn in two by several explosives ripping the cinder block foundations to shreds, and then the building crumbles underneath itself, falling to the ground. Pit races to the window, hearing the explosions get louder and louder.

"What- what is going on?" Pit yells this, his voice rising in terror.

Ike immediately places a hand on the butt of his pistol currently in his back pocket. "Rebels..." he growls.

"How do you know?"

"I- I just do. We came to Detroit, and so the rebels followed us. The building that fell... look for it on the map. Is that map real time?"

"No. It was taken when we got here, though."

"Where's the building that fell?"

Pit runs back to his computer, another rumble shaking the compound slightly. Ike can make out, just barely, as there's action everywhere, fighters swarming the streets and roads, opening fire on anything and everything in their path. He spots the military uniform of Detroit's armed forces locked in combat, and then horror hits him. Snake, Midna, and Robin are stuck in there, in the heart of Detroit's downtown.

"The building fell in the downtown district, just before the Needle. The Needle is twenty miles away from that!"

"Robin, Snake, and Midna are in that!" Ike yells back, twisting his head to look towards the living room. He storms back into the room, with Pit now sitting down on the floor, the commander's latest words flowing over him.

"What do we do?"

Ike's breathing continues hitching. On one hand, there are two Syrenet operatives heading towards a location that might be swamped in chaos. On the other hand, three comrades could be possibly in the middle of a fight going on involving guns, rockets, explosives, and absolute carnage drowning the center of the city. There's a heavy possibility that the trio downtown are dead. There's another possibility that the three are safe from harm and were heading back to the compound before the rebel forces arrived. He can't save them all.

And Marth! What is he do about Marth? Ike's heart hammers in his chest. He cannot believe he forgot all about his best friend. Fortunately, he thinks, with a slight pause, the hospital is in the other direction of the compound, on the opposite side of the city where the Needle is that Marth is staying at. The hospital has to be down in an evacuation, there's no other reasonable explanation. He cannot save all those he needs to, and right now, he has to value some lives over others.

"Ike?" Pit asks again, after the clockwork ticks and tocks in the bluenette's head.

He turns, pulling out his pistol from his back pocket, cocking it. "Suit up. We can't just sit here in the compound while the world turns to shit outside. Either the fight comes to us, or we go to the fight. Though it may be unlikely, it could be that Snake and Midna and Robin got themselves out of the carnage. Robin, if not the other two, will be in safety, and I know that FBI agents can take care of themselves," he takes a deep breath, his heart feeling heavy about what he is going to say, and Ike cannot believe he is going to utter the very next phrase. "Roy and Shulk may become engulfed in that mess and not even know it, depending on where they're going. Perhaps they do know, perhaps they don't. We don't know where Snake and the rest of them are, but we _do_ know where Lucas is, and we know where they're heading."

"Are you saying to go into the sewers and track Shulk down?"

Ike nods, and that means he has been the judge, jury, and executioner. He closes his eyes, taking another deep breath. He hopes no one - Midna, Robin, and Snake - die, otherwise he won't know how to accept the blame and move on. The commander takes a shaky breath next, tightening the grip on the pistol. "That's an order, commander," he says, his voice firm and full of authority.

Then, with bated breath, Ike smiles.

"Suit up. It's battle time."

* * *

Four in the afternoon sounds like a perfect time for a martini, and Corrin thinks her body agrees with her. Perhaps not all of her body, but close enough she figures, as her stomach might bloat some, but it is good enough for her. She plucks an olive off of the straw currently sitting in the second glass of her last martini, one arm resting against the elbow rest, the other on the tray while she stares outside the window of the flying private jet. The afternoon sky is a beautiful shade of luminescent azure blue, with the cotton candy swirly clouds, and the occasional gray cloud off in the distance brewing a storm of evil. She smiles to herself.

Lying to Shulk is not one of her favorite activities as of late, but she knows if she had told him the truth that there'd be hell to pay and somehow the Alpha commander would try to stop her. As if stopping Corrin Etch, the president of the United States, has ever been an easy, feasible task. No, she never had a meeting. No, there is no one special that is joining her. Yes, she had been heading to the airport when she spoke to Shulk via the Skype call, but she leaves her intentions in the dark for a reason. There's always a method to her madness, though on the outside looking in this might not always be the case. Corrin has already chewed the cuticles of her fingers down to the bare minimum where nothing remains, and it is starting to sting, but that is all because Corrin is nervous. Not much makes her nervous these days, but ever since stepping into the forbidden gates of Detroit, the nervousness has crept up on her. She's noticed its presence for a long time, where it stalked her through the halls of the Oval Office, yet she couldn't quite feel it all the time. Now it hangs over her, constantly breathing on her, a breath that is slow and ragged, filled with steam, clinging to her body and making her sweat.

Corrin is in route back to Washington D.C, to sit at her Oval Office and fill out some more paper work, speak to a Prime Minister or two, and leave the Syrenet business to her friends and orderlies back in Detroit who can certainly handle themselves. She'll only be gone for two days, returning back to Detroit on the second day. It is not like they need her to be by their side at all times, unless that makes her workers and partners in crime nothing more than lapdogs or henchmen who are so incompetent that they might as well be put down like sickly animals. She wrinkles her nose in disgust. How bad could things get without her there?

She's had a lot of time to herself, being alone and all for the past few hours since Mac's funeral by fire. To sit in her own dwelling, asking others to not speak to her while she ponders over the global schemes around her. The stars map out a destiny that she is not fond of, so Corrin decides to etch her own way through life and build her own empire different from what everyone has told her, because that is the definition of capability, and she's reached her capability threshold. She's transcended some sort of level, what that level is she does not know, but she feels it bristling under her skin like electricity. The imaginable sounds of praise and flattery fill her ears while she sits there in her comfortable airplane seat, sipping on confab martinis and eating olives off of plastic straws as there is nothing better to do.

Occasionally she'll look back over at her computer bag, which could allow her to get inside Shulk's head and call off Operation Glass Ceiling. Her hands long for it, for her fingers to type away at the keyboard when she enters her password, to boot up the device and put everything on hold. She wants to think she'd stop all that she has put in motion on the basis of one life, but that is a point where there is no return. One goes down it and they do not come back. Waves of nausea hit her while she sits and thinks about the Operation, and her commander, and why she's put so much trust in him.

He's an excellent soldier, an excellent guy to be around when he's not moping, which seems to be a pretty much exclusionary action that is happening more and more frequently. Through all of it, Corrin finds herself drawn to Shulk purely because he listens. He'll sit down next to you, place a trusting hand on your shoulder, and let that person empty themselves. She cannot count the number of times on her fingers that she's kept him up via a phone call while swirling a glass of wine in her hand. She's supposed to be asleep, he's supposed to be asleep, but she has to hear his voice. How lucky she is that he's still alive, how lucky that she is that he's not the one she sent away to Detroit all those years ago.

So she can have him now when the times call for it. Her heart is longing for him, and her body is too.

She remembers the very first time they had ever slept together.

 _Put the wedding band up, Shulk. You don't need it._

 _Do not ask me to do something-_

 _I'm not asking. I'm demanding._

 _I can't be with a woman like that._

 _I'm the only woman you've got, commander._

 _You're right about that._

She cannot look at him for a week straight whenever she's dealing with Syrenet business, and that has proven to be a complication, but then she picks up the phone, calls him, and they do it again. They continue having an affair, even though it is not an affair, but to be honest, Corrin has never quite known what the two of them had. One day, it ceases, it stops, and she does not have the power to try and bring it back in, as if their love or messed up emotional child could be rescued via a life buoy. The two hadn't spoken in months when Corrin calls him into her office right after Oklahoma City, and it all hits her in the face, then. The explosion of feeling, the taste of his skin and his sweat, the callousness of his hands on her shoulders, as her fingers taint themselves with his blood while she digs into his spine, as the two shift and swirl around the bedsheets in a whirlwind of cotton and lavender and silk.

It fills her with sickness that she's done this to him, which has perpetuated the fact that Shulk is a good listener. It sits inside the blonde's skull, she can tell, that he has to listen to her because he feels guilty and devoted, partially, somehow, in some way. She wishes she could've severed the tie, but she has Cloud by her side to run to whenever something with Shulk didn't go as planned, but now she's lost her husband, and she lost her commander, and she cannot recover back from that. Who's going to be hers now? Snake? The vice president and the FBI director are so entrenched with each other that they're blind, but Corrin understands it to be that Snake Karlo, given his credit, gets too involved with his work and the stress of keeping people alive and the country to safe to generally care about romances while his heart will still certainly yearn for them. Now Corrin sits in her bed, lonesome, with no one to share it with.

How disgusting must she be as a human being?

She thinks of her child, her precious Samantha. How is her daughter doing now? Corrin has had a lot of time to think, given her solidarity. With her pale, squealing face, with rosy cheeks from smiling and laughing, to her beautiful diamond eyes. The very last time she ever held her child had been giving her over to the Foster Care parents that had agreed within a day to adopt her daughter, her Samantha. Corrin lets go of her daughter's hand, and then she never touches her again. She remembers the parents as clear as her hand in front of her face. The father, a scrawny build, a slightly shifty look in the eyes, yet he feels trustworthy, a full head of blonde hair like her husband. The mother is a bit opposite, fit and regal, where her jade eyes pierce through her - Corrin will never forget that woman's look - and her dark, rich chestnut hair is resting against her back in long flowing locks.

It hits her, then, with a sudden realization that she has no idea if her daughter realizes that she's living with foster parents and not her original parents. To look at her mother and realize she looks nothing like her parents, save for the hair and eyes, but not in the mannerisms, not in her intelligence and political savviness, that she is able to achieve greatness if she reaches out and takes it.

She goes back to looking outside the window, to stare at the clouds. Her left hand extends back to her martini glass, with her index finger pushing the plastic straw around the circular bowl.

An extra presence is added near her, looming over Corrin's figure. She looks up to see one of her secret service agent personnel above her - not Mac, she has to realize, it's not Mac. She misses him, but she'll never miss him fully. She regrets that she never helped him before he died - arms crossed together in front of him. He had been standing up by the cockpit, speaking with the co-pilot. For a matter unknown, to be by her side, it must be important.

"Madam President?" he asks.

"Yes?" Corrin still is pushing the straw around the glass quite lazily. "What is it?"

The secret service agent shifts his hands. "We've just received intel from the Detroit airport security team that the city is under attack."

This is enough to cause her to sit up, her hands returning to her lap, which is one of Corrin's gestures to be self-soothing to herself. "I'm sorry? Say that again... an attack? By- by who?"

"A rebel force, Madam President. From the Midwest. A force of six thousand strong, intel said."

" _Six thousand strong?"_ her mind thinks with panic. " _Only four hundred attacked Oklahoma City, and even less than that fought in Chicago... six thousand? How could the cause have that many people dedicated to it?"_ and then aloud to the agent, "How long has been this going on?"

"About a half hour Madam President, and the Detroit army has engaged with the insurgents. The fighting has all been on the ground. No air units used."

That slightly, just so slightly reassures her, but it is not enough, deep down, to assuage her complete worry. How could the rebel force even know that she had been in Detroit? How would the Midwestern enemy know this unless someone had told them. Her heart is beating too wildly for all that she has been thinking about so far.

Her eyes widen. "The city is under attack, you said? The vice president and the FBI director are in Detroit! We have to go back at once!"

"We very well cannot do that with you on board this aircraft, Madam President. It is too dangerous."

Corrin curses in her mind. This is not what she envisioned to be the way her afternoon would head. "Shit..."

"What do you want us to do, Madam President?"

"I want to nuke the fuck out of them..." she hisses to herself, then again, to the agent, "Deploy some military forces. We've got a rebellion to squash." Corrin presses the bridge of her nose.

None of this is going to plan. It is all happening way too fast. First, she has Ganondorf come in and throw a wrench in her plans that she had not even expected, and then the viper from the Midwest is biting her once again, just to see her twitch. She is twitching, she is sporadically flinging herself into trouble and danger. It had been so easy... where Operation Glass Ceiling would be executed in three phases. Phase One is Shulk successfully completes the mission of turning Detroit's Needle into her control, where the city of Detroit who has been a thorn in her side, and the rebel force alike to all be under her watchful gaze. Phases Two and Three, Extermination and Consolidation would be reached when she got there, but it looks like she has to accelerate a few things at once. It never even occurs to her to factor in the rebel forces that wouldn't just give up since Syrenet flees Chicago. The beasts that the rebels are would not stop until Syrenet is eradicated, with Corrin Etch sitting on her own throne made of bones.

"I have a couple orders I'd like our ground forces to execute. Do we have any agents, FBI or otherwise besides the director and Midna Nye in the city?" she says. The agent nods, and Corrin bites on the bottom of her lip. "These two orders go to them. Get Robin Wyndel to safety, out of the crossfire of the city, even if they have to remain in city limits. After that, they will know what to do when I mean Step Canary," the secret service agent nods. Her and Robin had agreed that if there ever had been a time when one's life would be in danger and in a compromised situation she has no control in despite having both hands down deep in the mess, the two would have codenames for each other, and Robin, in her manner, suits the codename Canary. "There's a Syrenet commander in one of the Detroit hospitals... commander Marth Lowell. Get him to some place safe, and have them perform Step Falchion. They'll understand what that means."

The secret service agent writes this all down in his head, nodding. "And what about the rest of your Syrenet team, Madam President?"

The faces flash by. Shulk. Roy. Lucas, even though Corrin has never considered the AI Unit to be in any way, shape, or form remotely related to the cause whatsoever. Midna. Snake. Pit. Ike... what is she to do with them while Robin and Marth are situated away safely? She has always had a second route in Phase Two, where Extermination happened towards her enemies in the literal sense, and then there had been a metaphorical sense for her allies, but there is no time.

"God bless them," Corrin says, and her uttering these words is like drowning burning sulfuric acid. "We will worry with Vice President Wyndel and Commander Lowell for the time being, and then the others will have to hold and fight on. That-" she takes a deep breath. "That is all."

The secret service agent nods his head, before turning back to go up to the cockpit. Corrin resumes looking out the window, frowning still. It is so ironic that the sky she is flying in can be so perfect and blue, while the sky back in Detroit, despite being the accursed area that it is, now has sulfur clouds and fire lacerating the sky, incinerating all that it touches.

She is glad that the secret service agent has stepped away from her, as she squeezes her eyes shut, letting out a shaky breath.

Tears begin to fall down her cheeks. Crystalline tears, genuine tears, real tears, and Corrin cannot remember the last time she's cried,

She sent so many of her friends, nine trusted councilors and employees who have put their lives on the line for her Syrenet program, to their doom.

All by her orders, when all Corrin wants to do is save them all, save as many as she can.

However, she's learned this from her father many years ago, one of the things her father had actually taught her.

When a glass ceiling falls and breaks, not everyone can be safe from the shards that shatter outwards after.

The nine are all affected.

Corrin Etch sits on her throne of bones, as the only one who remains.

* * *

It all starts with a rumble, and then the sky and ground erupt at the same time. Snake's ear drums blow first, before his vision is immediately clouded in dust, dirt, debris, smoke, and an assortment of other hazards. It is the screaming that gets to him first. The wailing of the injured and the dying from the initial blasts, where fire shoots from the ground, and chunks of sidewalk and asphalt explode outwards, while the tendrils of flame curdle into the air, gripping and clawing whomever they can. The second onslaught of voices rushes to meet him, as the five thousand on the hill surges downwards to the burning city, to the beautiful technological place of Detroit to usher in its reckoning.

When Snake's vision clears, as he's dragging a sobbing and frightened Robin by the arm to a safe place - is anywhere in the city going to be safe - he knows, he understands. The rebels followed Syrenet, wherever they go, their demons follow them too. They did not fall upon Detroit by chance and decide to just destroy the city because they can, or could. Detroit will fall for harboring an enemy, and for that, aiding an enemy is the punishment of death.

Chaos is happening all around the FBI director, and his heart is beating a thousand times a minute. What does he do? What can _anyone_ at this point do? He cannot leave Robin's side. If he does, where will the silverette go? No one in Detroit, now besides the murdered twelve council members and Ganondorf know that Syrenet had even been encamped in the city. Not a single Detroit military officer will help her get to safety. Bright pastel colors are fighting amidst the traditional greens, browns, and oranges of the rebel colors, where the pastels signify Detroit military, forces surging against other forces, a mosh pit of guns and knives and fists. In the center of it all, as if she is commanding it by the movement of her hands, Snake sees a blonde woman, her hair tied down against her neck, screaming out orders.

Snake looks at Robin, and she looks back at him, fear in her eyes. He is helpless. Completely helpless.

He has pistol drawn, not having expected anything to happen on what seemed like a normal and tranquil day. Mac's murder shakes him, and Ganondorf's news even more so that their president, their silver queen has abandoned them in the foreign city without telling anyone, and then Hell's angels came swooping down from the sky... he feels like it is prophetic.

The FBI director pushes the vice president behind him, as the two backup around the corner of a building. He leans around the corner, scouting, as the fighting continues to ensnare the streets. Hundreds are already dead, a mix of three groups: military, simple citizens of Detroit, and rebels, but it seems like the killing is random and the chaos has no order to it, which adds to the denotation. Snake has seen a chaos that has been orderly before, where the rules of nature were still followed to some capacity, but now it is pure lunacy, no one caring for what side fights and kills who.

Someone is running their way, a person identified by the dark camo colors, and Snake is not taking a chance. Aiming with his pistol, he fires at the man. His gun ricochets in his hand, the barrel explodes, and a bullet enters the rebel's throat. Blood spews everywhere. The man falls down, choking to death on the coagulation happening in his airway, but before Snake can go and steal his gun for protection, someone runs out from inside the building he and Robin had been hiding behind. The woman running out is a normal citizen, dressed finely in high heels and a dress for working, perhaps as a bank associate or a secretary or something, who seizes the man's fallen assault rifle. Snake cannot decide if this woman is being brave or a pure lunatic. The woman races towards the conflict, the mob of green and pastel, and in front of his eyes, she pushes down the assault rifle's trigger and bullets spray everywhere in an arc as she downs rebels in front of her, trying to surge forward. All this woman wants to do is protect her country that she's living in from these foreign invaders, he understands. Her bloodbath is ended short when someone throws a knife from the crowd being hammered by the woman's assault, which embeds into her shoulder, causing the woman to scream in pain. That second is enough for the crowd to swarm her, the woman going down in a cloud of camo and copper.

Snake lets out a shaky breath, pushing Robin back behind him further. He holds the cold barrel of the gun up against his chest. His hands are visibly shaking. He cannot remember the last time he ever felt this nervous.

He closes his eyes. The FBI director is goin to count to five, and when he reaches five, he'll take Robin's hand and the two will run for the hills. One... two... three... four... five...

The brunette grabs Robin's hand without warning, spinning around, about to vault forward in the opposite direction from the action, before stopping dead in his tracks.

"Midna?" he cries out incredulously.

Clear as day, the FBI agent, in her shimmering scarlet beauty, is hiding in the middle of the next street behind one of the mailbox package delivery stations, a group of seven men - rebels, by their colored dress - advancing on her. Snake wants to gun them down, but he'll be unable to make it that far before one of them starts to shoot, and he does not have his sniper rifle from before to use as that'll fix the distance problem. One of the gunmen shoots at the small opening at the bottom of the mailbox, the gap where Midna's feet would be. She jostles away from it, using that moment to vault over the top of the mailbox. Her hair is a wild whirlwind of flames as she tackles the man who made the shot, knocking him into the ground. She unsheathes the knife that had been by her left leg, slicing the man's throat clean open. Before the second and third rebel can react, Midna takes the first's gun, shooting both dead. Midna vaults over to the fourth, breaking his arm before throwing him over her shoulder, stomping on his neck, which cracks. Snake cannot believe his eyes, as if his agent is surrounded by an aura of sorts, filling her with a rage that she's never felt before. Midna kicks the fifth man in the chest, which knocks him into the mailbox at quite the quick speed, the man falling unconscious. She shoots the sixth man in the back of the head, and the seventh approaches her, brandishing a knife, no gun. The rebel swipes left, Midna ducking opposite. He dives the blade down, she swiping up and catching his arm in the crook of hers, effectively trapping him. She kicks her leg up, catching the rebel right in his crotch, causing him to down to one knee. Midna grabs his neck, all the while he's shouting mercy, but it is not a strong enough plea. She twists her arms, and the man falls slack onto the concrete, dead.

Snake runs over to her, as if the street has become a slight safe haven, while madness descends around them. She wipes some blood off of her forehead, sweat mingling in with the crimson streaks.

She catches his gaze first, her facial expression that of which can only be described as disbelief. "Snake?"

He is at a loss for words, as the sounds of war and destruction can be heard getting closer. It'll only be a matter of time before the entire city is swarmed in death. "I- I've never seen you fight like that before, I-" Is praise even the right thing to do at this moment in time? He has no idea, he hasn't been involved in a situation where there's downtime or idle chitchat to be made while the world around him burns. Luckily, Snake is stopping right there at even attempting to converse.

Midna takes two of the pistols out of one of the dead men's jackets, practically shoving them into Robin's direction.

"I- what, I can't use-" Robin starts to babble, almost incoherently at that.

"We were going to run back to the compound and evacuate-" Snake starts.

"What?" Midna interrupts, her scarlet hair swiping around her neck. "You're just going to abandon these people, Snake? The rebels are going to try to kill as many as they can and you just want to flee? Talk about cowardice!"

"I am _not_ just going to flee-" he tries to override her.

"If you and Robin want to go back to headquarters, by all means. I'm staying. And I'm going to fight." Midna straightens her back, reloading her weapon. "The FBI do not run from a fight. Unfortunately, Mr. Karlo," she has never, not once, in her entire life called him by his title, and that's a sign of respect, but also urgency. "We're all that the city has for foreign aid. _I'm_ helping them. They killed Mac, those bastards," she clenches her fingers. "For that, they all deserve to die."

Snake looks at Robin, still holding the pistols slack in her hand. An explosion happens behind them, perhaps from a misdirected rocket. The silverette nods. It is as if the two are speaking to each other just from their looks in their eyes. The vice president begins to run from them, deciding to slip the pistols into her pockets, heading in the direction of one venue point farther up on a hill that he can see. If things prove dire, he'll run that way with Midna.

When he turns to look back at his fellow FBI agent, she is already starting to take off towards the rushing mob, a Detroit military force in combat with a rebel group, a mob amassed of at least four hundred, like Chicago all over again. Snake reloads his pistol, sighing, shaking his head, running after her. His feet pound on the gravel as he runs, his breathing starting to accelerate. He eyes down a bit as he lifts the pistol up to his level, firing a shot at a rebel who had tried to head-butt a Detroit officer. He's about to reach Midna when something streaks past him, dividing the mob in two.

A few people are blown away by what had been fired, which is an RPG from the same blonde woman Snake had seen earlier. Midna is just away from him when he sees the blonde woman stand up, pulling something out of her pocket. It is as if there is a directional complication here for Snake, as he looks. Directly to his left, Midna, and down from him, this woman. In her hands, is a remote control. His eyes widen.

"Midna! Run!" he screams.

The woman presses down on the button and the world explodes for a second time. The ground gives way, and Snake is blown back some, still keeping his ground. A landmine just exploded down from him, closer to Midna's side of the street. He sees her, with her scarlet hair, dancing in a wave of blades and blood, dashing and killing from each rebel to the next. He's about to cry her name again when another landmine underneath them explodes, an upheaval of dirt, stone, flesh, and blood rips into the sky. Across the street, he and Midna lock eyes. She's isolated, two large gaps from the mines that had exploded leaving her effectively trapped.

He goes to run towards her when the ground buckles. Snake watches with horror as Midna's slab of the street, with other rebels and Detroit forces on it too, shakes, then plummets. Her mouth is open wide in a scream as the piece of the street crumbles down below the ground.

Snake backs up on all fours, his pistol hanging elsewhere. The crowd is advancing, the wave of Detroit forces starting to retreat as more explosions destroy the street. He stands up shakily, wiping at his mouth, when he hears...

"Snake! Snake, help me!"

It's Robin's voice!

The FBI director whirls around, and it is her, it is the vice president. He furrows his eyebrows together, seeing the attire of those surrounding her. Black suits and white dress shirts, dark sunglasses, earpieces in their ears... _is that the Secret Service?_ There's a van, and Robin is being ushered inside quickly, but yet rather forcefully by what he sees. Not just in the usual hurried manner, but something more violent than that. One of the secret service men pulls out an assault rifle from the van, shooting at the rebel crowd surging forward.

The van lurches forward.

"Wait!" Snake calls, starting to run. He has no idea who any of those people truly are. He has no idea what's going on and where Robin is, or if Midna's dead, or what the _fuck_ is going on. "Hold up! Stop!" He goes to shoot at the tires of the van, when the blonde woman presses down the button on her remote a third time.

Another explosion rocks the street, this time under the spot where the van had been, killing the secret service agent with the assault rifle. The van is already vanishing down into the untouched parts of the city. Snake is blown back by the shockwave of energy, his gun flying out of his hand. He is screaming, he can tell.

He slams into the side of a building, and before he hits the ground, black ants burrow into his vision.

* * *

The world inside Lucas's AI disc shakes sometimes, but not enough for him to notice. He's sitting down in one of his randomly generated fields, with a pond next to him, a sun shining above him. Had he showed Shulk the extravagance he could usher in, the Alpha Squad commander who never want to leave. It is the reason why the blonde commander falls unconscious the time he had spoken to Fiora inside the disc, a human is not supposed to step into a world not made for them. It is like space, Lucas relates that idea to. Space is a foreign area that mortals should not visit, and the stretches they have to go to as a race to even be in space are consequential enough if not followed.

Lucas has been sitting down in the field for the past half hour, having nothing to do, since it is Shulk's prerogative to have him be remotely turned off, not even speaking to him through the headset and visor. If Lucas wanted to, he could tap into Shulk and Roy's conversation, since he knows that they have to be speaking instead of walking in silence. He wonders what must've happened for him to shut off, and what that means as a whole between he and Shulk's relationship.

"I'm not trusted," the AI Unit says bitterly. "At least not fully. He doesn't trust me enough to tell me what's going on. He doesn't trust me enough to tell me his problems that I know he's having. It's like I don't even exist to him anymore..."

Lucas wants to know what his real-life human counterpart had been like. He's always wanted to know. The AI understands that he looks just like the person he had been programmed to be, but this is all appearance. He wants to understand who his inspiration had been before their youthful death, their death that took them at such a young age. He wants to experience the comfort of a mother's hug, or the gratitude of a father's praise... the touch between siblings, a hearty laugh shared between friends... Lucas desires love. Is that not the main goal of humanity? To want to experience love and joy and to fight back the consequences and sufferings of each opposite, for hate and pain?

He digs his hand into the dirt of the pond. The dirt is not real, at least not fully. Lucas knows this, on some subconscious level. He's supposed to be an intelligent being, yet he cannot configure what is real or not, at least not fully. What a handshake feels like. What is the true feeling of pain? To- to be a living thing.

"I- I want to be a living thing..." he whispers to himself, afraid as if Shulk could somehow hear him.

"That is very well feasible!" a voice suddenly shouts, and Lucas scrambles up to stand.

"Who- who said that?" Lucas asks, looking around him. There's no one in sight, there's not a single person around in his hub except him. He hadn't told anyone else how to access the AI Unit disc except for Shulk, so who would be-

He gasps. The circular sphere of his digital world starts to shimmer. It is a wave of reflective glass, the surface of a prism that refracts light, the white color starting to shift and darken to a plethora of rainbow colors that spreads around him entirely, as if the AI Unit is trapped inside a kaleidoscope. His blood runs cold. No one responds to his question, and even he is disappointed in himself for having a second of lost composure.

Something bulges out of the sphere on ground level to Lucas, as if someone is trying to walk to the other side. He starts to back up. Here, unfortunately, Lucas does not have a weapon. Can- can he even be destroyed inside the hub, or must the disc as a whole be destroyed for his existence to be eradicated? The intrusion morphs, as Lucas can see it clearer now, to be a person. The sphere breaks away some, scattering out like shards of a stained-glass window.

Standing before Lucas is someone he has never seen before. The stranger is tall, extremely tall given how short Lucas is as an actual programmed eleven year-old. It is a man, which he figures out from their deep voice and now in front of him. Their skin tone is a deep olive green, and in the center of their head, a sparkling gemstone; a ruby Lucas thinks. The stranger is wearing a long cape, a roughly knit royalty robe dyed a dark brown, and Lucas is slightly, ever so slightly in awe. He's more so captured by his own personal fear, however.

"Who are you?" he asks again.

The stranger smiles, ignoring the question entirely. "So you are the one who managed to hack into and disable the entire Detroit security system... that is quite a feat for a piece of programming. It is an honor to meet you," the man bows his head, the gemstone in his head glowing a more subdued, deeper shade of red. "I am Ganondorf."

It is not enough to quell Lucas's fear. This person has arrived unannounced. That is not possible for someone to randomly be in his disc without warning, and at the fact he had not known about it or been alerted to it.

"How did you get in here?" the blonde questions.

Ganondorf rises back to standing straight, giving off another triumphant grin. "Easily enough, I hacked into it, young man."

Time slows down and stays still inside the AI Unit's head, like a continuous loop of questioning and not getting an answer. None of this should be possible. It should be impossible. Lucas always though that the AI Unit disc, it's circular form, had always been impenetrable from an outside point of view. Cannot be entered, cannot be hacked, the data cannot be seen from an outside source without permission. The only people with that sort of access had been Lucas himself, it is his disc after all, Shulk since he is the commander he is assigned to, and Pit who is his creator in some weird way of thinking. No one, not some random soul, as Lucas figures this man to be, a mere mortal, to just waltz into the AI Unit's world like a piece of digitalized programming. How is any of this possible? He swallows the lump in his throat.

"I'm sorry, but that's just not possible. It's- it's impossible. How did- how did you-" Lucas stutters over his words. Damn his frightened state.

The man steps forward, which likewise Lucas steps back, fully out of fear and trepidation. Ganondorf sighs, unhooking the cape around his shoulders, which had hidden most of his body underneath the cloak. It falls to the ground, surrounded by the digital world's mist, and his body is revealed to Lucas. From the bit Lucas can see of Ganondorf's left arm, and then what he assumes to be all down his back, is technology. An arm drowning underneath chrome plating, wires poking out and fizzing, nodes constantly shifting, and an insignia right near where the arm joint connects to the neck. Lucas's blood runs cold for the third time.

That insignia, nothing more than a jaggedly drawn S, with the curved endpoints of the letter spiked downwards with a laser, represents that is a Syrenetic machine. It is Syrenet property. Syrenet made this, or very well made the arm and back that is meshed to Ganondorf's body. It is like something straight out of a horror movie, and Lucas is wanting to eradicate the virus out of him entirely.

Isn't that what happens when a host wants to eliminate a virus? The host uses antibiotics which purges the villain from the outside in. Can Lucas even perform such an operation to begin with? He swallows his fear.

"That's- that's Syrenet's insignia..." he points weakly at the arm.

Ganondorf keeps his grin. "Yes. I am a piece of Syrenet. Half-man, half-machine. Your president, Corrin Etch, had a volunteer program to test the technology with human hosts, and I had been the very first creation. It is why I am able to be here with you now. The same technology that created you created me, giving us a link."

Something in Lucas switches, as if his fear transforms a bit into awe, but there's enough uncertainty in his step to still leave a bitter taste in his mouth regardless. Nothing is sounding as it should be, there are still red flags appearing everywhere. "What does your half-machine side give you?"

The stranger's eyes gleam with satisfaction, as if Lucas is falling straight into the trap. A spider web with a black widow hanging ominously over it, pincers clacking together while an unsuspecting victim stands directly underneath. Ganondorf picks his cape back up off the ground, looping it through the robe to knit it back to his shoulders. "I am everything that is Syrenet, and everything that is human. I can access the Internet, just like you can. I have the knowledge of whatever I wish to pursue. I can teleport myself to a different spot should I be under attack."

"Are you invincible?" Lucas has always wondered that about himself. Can his programming ever become corrupted or broken or destroyed should something misfire? He knows that Ness had been decommissioned, but that means manually turned off and left alone, forever sitting in the dark, as if Ness is sleeping a slumber that he cannot wake up from should Pit reactivate him for whatever purpose.

Ganondorf makes a cooing sound in his throat. "On the surface, yes. But nothing in this world is indestructible. I am also still a human being, purely enhanced by my Syrenetic technologies. Every human being has an Achilles Heel. Mine is here," and he taps the gemstone in his head. Lucas's eyes flirt to the ruby. "Either I die of old age, which is extended because of the technology keeping me alive for a more sustained period of time, or the ruby is destroyed."

"What else can you do?"

"I can make others like me," Ganondorf says cryptically. Lucas locks eyes with him, the blonde's face a twisted frown of confusion. The man lifts his head up some more, the ruby engulfing itself in a tide of sunburst orange and cardinal flame. "I can make them _human_."

Something goes _drum-drum_ inside Lucas. The words flip a switch, and Lucas can feel something other than digital pieces of code flow through his veins. A heart beating, his breath quickening, and his eyes widening as he sees all. Euphoria runs through his veins, an elixir of knowledge and understanding. All at Ganondorf's behest, to become a human, a half human like he is himself... and it is what Lucas has always wanted. He's always wanted to be like this. Lucas's dream finally within his grasp.

"You mean- I could become human?" he whispers.

Ganondorf nods. "It's the main reason why I decided to enter the disc. I heard you say that. It's what you always wanted, right, Lucas?"

It does not occur to the AI Unit that he had never even said his name, but he nods. Ganondorf advances some more, but this time the blonde does not recoil in fear. The cyborg leans down to stare into Lucas's eyes, to see past the cornea, and into his brain, a cerebral organism vibrating with synapses down a digitally enhanced spine. Lifting his hands, Ganondorf places his fingers on the sides of Lucas's face, and presses down, tightening his grip.

 _Lucas can see something, something in the future, but he is unable to decipher what it is. A sun rises over the horizon, a black sun, however. As Lucas continues to climb, he realizes it is a hill he is trying to get over. The black sun continues to rise, and when he reaches the top, Lucas is standing over a city, but it is not Detroit. It is some place he has never seen, but the horror is all the same. It is on fire, the landscape beneath him, ensnared by a firestorm that rips everything to pieces, before the pieces themselves burn up into cinders and ashes. The black sun rises even higher, and it all goes white._

He recoils away from Ganondorf in panic, coughing heavily. That could not be what being a human is, surely? All that horror, certainly it could not be?

Ganondorf frowns. "What you saw is something I didn't want to show you. Your commander, Shulk Roberts, is in route to perform a mission. Operation Glass Ceiling, correct?" Lucas nods, visibly shaking. "What he is going to do, though I am afraid he does not understand it, will be dire and lead to consequences unimaginable. Though I threw in some hyperbole to what I showed you, that will be the fate of some place, somewhere, perhaps everywhere if this mission Shulk is doing succeeds," and the cyborg shifts closer to the AI Unit. "I need you to help me try and convince him to cease this operation, to save everyone from that fate of death. You help me with this, then I will do all in my power for your wish to come true. Do you agree?"

Lucas nods once more, a tear sliding down his cheek. Ganondorf wipes it away, frowning with sadness behind his bleak stare. "I understand. I'll try my best."

"When given a chance, start the conversation about your AI Unit friend Ness," Ganondorf says. Lucas frowns. How would Ganondorf know about that? On second thought, how did the cyborg know his commander's name, and how did the cyborg know _his_ name? "Shulk has been hiding things from you, and I think you should know why. Good luck, Lucas. We will speak again."

Ganondorf lifts his hands up, tilting his head back, before vanishing in a cybernetic storm, the bits and pieces of his chrome plating collapsing and folding over each other. Lucas gets to his knees, shaking still, arms trembling, lip quivering. He has no idea what he just saw. He has no idea why he even trusts this Ganondorf in the first place, but at this point, does it truly even matter? It's up to him now, to save someone, to save Shulk from an apparent inward destruction.

 _I want to be a living thing._

 _I want to be alive._

 _I want to be beautiful._

* * *

"Come on, dammit! Work, you stupid machine!" Ike growls, hitting his two-wave radio he has clenched in his left hand. He and Pit are walking underneath the streets of Detroit, in one of the interconnected sewer systems. There are steady, yet quiet booms that shake the foundations. Pit expresses his worry about what is going on, yet nothing happens, they do not turn back. The database is still showing Lucas's position, that the duo of Shulk and Roy are still heading to the Needle, even if the structure is still not there in the first place.

Ike slams the radio back into his suit pocket, the two decked out in their Syrenet gear. Their steps clunk and echo down the abandoned tubes of sewage, sliding chills down Pit's spine due to the ghastly noise, but he's used to the strangeness by now. The eeriness in the city has yet to be replicated elsewhere. "Not working, huh?" he asks.

"No," Ike says breathlessly, tugging at his shirt collar. "I can't get a damn signal for the life of me. No outside radio contact, which means I cannot speak to anyone from D.C about the situation. We're trapped in this stupid city that's in the midst of a war!"

Pit keeps one hand around his waist, pocketing and tapping the Automatic Army drone that he brought with him just in case. He does not have a full-fledged suit like Ike, as he has no AI Unit. He has no true eye-in-the-sky, and no immediate access to any sort of readily available rockets or blades, all must be accessed by Pit's own hand. Even though he _built_ the current technology he's wearing, it doesn't mean he fully understands how to use it, either. The Automatic drone is his last resort.

Ike hits the radio one more time, and as music to his ears, it spouts alive with static. "A signal!" he exclaims, happily. Ike slows his pace down, fumbling with the radio. The waves continue to battle each other in the airways for dominance. Pit rushes over to be by his side. "You can do this, you stupid radio, you can work."

Breaking out of the haze, Ike hears a mumbled voice, "This is Echo Tower 8309, speaking. Over."

Pit's eyes widen in excitement and joy. That's a military codename for one for one of the command towers at the closest military base to D.C. "Can you hear us? Over."

"Sorry, may that be repeated. It is hard to understand you. Over."

"Can you hear us?" Ike roars into the radio. "This is Commander Ike Forgenson, head of Syrenet's Charlie Squad. We're in Detroit and the city is under attack! President Corrin and Vice President Robin are in the city, alongside the rest of us on our Syrenet mission, and we're under attack from rebel forces from the Midwest. Do you copy? Over." Nothing, for a few seconds. "Do you copy? Over." No response. "Are you there? Echo Tower, are you there? Over."

He wants to lay down and rest forever, Ike does. He wants for this entire mess to be over, to be by Marth's side and help him through his recovery. To sit back in his cot at headquarters and slumber away while nightmares of rebel forces and blood fills his dreams, to cry and clench his pillow tighter, but he must slough through the nightmare first, the nightmare comes first. He's going to try again, yell out that he needs help, that they all need help or they're all going to die, when the radio pops again.

"Hear you loud and clear, Commander Forgenson. Military action, ordered by President Corrin has been executed. Can you give us your exact location, commander? Over."

"We don't know our exact location!" Pit yells into the radio. "We don't know where the hell we are! That's why we're trying to get your attention, over! Over."

"Can you tell us what is the next course of action, sir? What has Corrin planned? Over," Ike adds.

The official speaking on the other line continues. "There is to be a scheduled mortar strike, over the city, to drop in about a minute, commander. Over."

Ike widens his eyes in horror. Over the city? That could mean anywhere. That could kill _anyone_ anywhere. "Repeat that again, Sergeant. Did you just say a mortar strike in the immediate area? Over."

However, Ike never gets to hear the officer on the other end give an answer. Pit hears a thud above him, high above him. Both he and Ike look up warily, neither person uttering a word. They lock eyes, Pit is about to protest something, and Ike shoves him back, before racing as far forward as he can. Pit goes soaring back, as the extra added sounds of something colliding with the ground can be heard. The technician, with his wings crumbled as the silence surrounds him, breathes.

The ground erupts in a cascade of fire. The noise is deafening as the mortars that had been deployed above Ike and Pit's very position detonate. The subway system and the street above that cave-in, and the last Pit sees of Ike is the bluenette's curls of navy blue hair before rock and metal and earth crumble below to the sewers. Another mortar goes off, blowing Pit off of his feet, everything in his hands going flying. He is blocked from the normal route, blocked from Ike, separated from him.

The noise is still deafening as the explosions rock the ground, shaking every fiber that keeps it up. Is this the United States military's idea of a controlled execution? Collateral! What about collateral?

"Ike!" Pit screams, running up against the block that fell in the way of their path. "Ike! Can you hear me? Ike!" He pounds his fists into the rock. "Dammit, no! Ike!" Pit rests his head against the rock, starting to cry. The violence is still happening up above, he can hear it. The technician whirls around. There has to be another way through these sewers, a way that is not destroyed, a way that'll get him to safety somehow, someway, somewhere.

His eyes widen again. Over in the corner, since the last explosion, the computer that had been tracking Lucas's AI Unit disc went flying out of Pit's hands. It now lays snapped in half, sparking from all the holes, against a cinderblock. Pit runs over to it, crumbling to his knees. "No... no no no no no this cannot be happening. NO!" he slams his fist on the ground. "Don't do this to me world, don't do this to me."

The air is starting to still, causing Pit to cough. He holds the fragmented pieces of the computer in his hands, and then a light bulb goes off in his head. He pats the back of his pocket, the Automatic drone still there. He rips it out of his pants, pressing the button atop it. The drone comes to life, levitating in the air by the tiny dragonfly like wings flapping at the speed of light. The circular light around the center blinks, meaning it's on.

Pit gets down to face the drone. "Find commander Ike Forgenson for me. Lead me to him."

The drone seems to comply, hanging in the air for a second. It turns, just for a moment, as if it is going to head down the open path, before turning another one eighty to then collide straight into the rock. "No!" Pit howls. "That way, the other way, turn around! Why aren't you working, you piece of shit!"

The drone seems to be confused by the directions, sputtering in the air, before smoke billows out of the top, colliding into the Earth, shattering.

He crumbles down to his knees again, tears falling down his face.

"Oh God... oh God, oh God..." Pit mumbles.

Is he trapped down here?

Is Pit Icarus going to die down in the sewers? Lost, unable to go back the way he came, unsure where the mortars are going to land. Separated from Ike, the only person he could rely on. His technology failing him.

What- what is he going to do?

Pit closes his eyes.

The explosions still ricochet and the ground still rumbles behind his closed gaze.

* * *

They've come to a crossroad. Roy stands in the middle of it alongside Shulk, the commander looking down both ways constantly, every few seconds. It is a no-brainer for Roy, the decision the two need to make. To the left, down one sector of the sewer, written on a plaque is the word 'Needle', and he automatically knows that the path would take them towards the Needle, towards the location Corrin demanded they go to, to execute Operation Glass Ceiling. The other path has more of the strange devices that Roy had noticed on their walk earlier, where the devices would glow amber, and Roy knows what the amber light means.

It means Ganondorf.

The no-brainer is to go to the right, down the dark sewer path towards where the cyborg wants them to go. He made an open challenge, and Shulk accepted it. Yet, somehow, as he has discovered, the commander is starting to resist. He's resisting, and Roy is confused as to why.

"We have to go in the direction of the Needle," Shulk argues, pointing.

"But Ganondorf _killed_ your wife, Shulk! He even dared you to go to him. Why wouldn't we?" Roy snaps back.

"I know what he did. He admitted it. But who's to say we deal with him later?"

"What?"

This option has not occurred to Roy. Detroit will still be standing by the time the two complete the mission, and Ganondorf will still remain in the city, waiting, brewing. Though, it slightly is chilling Roy's blood, Ganondorf does not want Roy in his presence, he's only requested - demanded, rather - Shulk's presence. The redhead knows, however, that if the commander faces this cyborg demon alone, who has taunted him all the while and has gloated about the damage he has done, Shulk lasts zero chance and will meet the same fate his wife did. The two have to do this together.

"Alright then," Roy nods, starting to move forward. "We go to the Needle and then to Ganondorf." He does not make it very far, as Shulk lifts a hand and stops him in his tracks.

"No," the blonde says.

"No?" Roy repeats, twisting his face in a scowl. "What do you mean, no?"

"I don't want you to go with me, at least not to the Needle."

"Why not?"

"Corrin ordered me, and only me to do this. She wanted you to go with me to watch my back, but if I'm heading in the opposite direction, I will be safe and I don't need backup."

"But Ganondorf-"

"I will deal with Ganondorf myself, Roy." Shulk's eyes flash with anger, an anger Roy had never noticed before. He's seen flashes of it before, all the way back in D.C when the two had first met, but nothing necessarily like this, where the anger is not contained, but outwards and full-fledged. It is as if Shulk is uncertain how to contain and confront his emotions, to understand the emotions he's playing with. "I'll deal with Ganondorf alone, after I execute Glass Ceiling at the Needle. You are to return headquarters."

"Shulk, I cannot-" Roy tries to argue.

"That's an order, soldier!" Shulk stomps his foot on the ground. "I am your leading officer, and as your leading officer I command that you. Go. Back! Do you understand me, soldier?" he gets into Roy's face, yelling all the while. If Ganondorf didn't know their exact location, he knows now.

The words of protest die on his tongue. He's always had this notion that they were equals, both serving the same organization and serving the same president, but the reality had always been that Roy is the last rung on the totem pole. Just because he is in the Alpha Squad, which is the first and highest ranking, he is just a member. Marth has superiority over him, Ike has superiority over him, Pit himself has superiority over him since they _command,_ and Roy just _works._ Shulk shatters the illusion that the two were ever partners, if even friends. He knows why Shulk is doing this. He doesn't want to see him hurt, he certainly doesn't want him to die. Roy just wants to understand why... the big question no one seems to be able to answer. Why, just why?

Roy swallows his disobedience, the extra protest that wants to escape but cannot. "Sir, yes sir."

Shulk nods, patting Roy on the shoulder. "Keep your communication comm on, Roy. If I need to talk to you, I want that accessibly available." Then, without another word, the commander turns and begins running down the opposite direction, into the lane directed to the Needle, to go execute the operation that Corrin has called them - called _him,_ Shulk Roberts, Roy corrects - to do.

The redhead, stands there, however, for a moment. Just to stand there and absorb it all. He can feel it bristling over his skin, this tension. This outward and inward battle between everyone in Syrenet, and it still leaves him confused to this day. That everything is drawing to a close, this westward mission to place a Syrenet branch somewhere. It has evolved into something even Roy could not have fathomed for a second. When, only a few months ago, Roy had been a fresh new FBI agent, about to become someone important in the U.S Government, for Corrin's invitational letter to fall into his lap. To stare at death in the form of Link Collins's glare, with a knife embedded into his leg, and now in the foreign warzone of Detroit, with a criminal who has murdered people beckoning him from afar.

He presses a node in the side of his helmet, turning on the communication setting, so he can speak to Shulk via the visor should he need to. Silence washes over the tunnel, the echo of Shulk's running feet dying into garbled bits of sound petering into the wall.

Roy goes to take a step forward when his skin runs ice cold. He turns his head, looking down the right path. Left meant the Needle, right meant Ganondorf's lair. The tunnel lights are still glowing the ghastly, haunting amber of the demon from above.

The redhead forms a fist. Screw this. Yes, Shulk has given him an order. Yes, Shulk, his commander, the authority he looks to has told him to turn the other way and head to safety, but no, he is not going to do that. Something down there, through this second corridor, has hurt Shulk in an unimaginable way, and Roy Arcadia is going to take matters into his own hand.

He cocks his gun, marching into the black of the right sewer tunnel.

Ganondorf does not deserve to be waited on, even though Shulk's idea is brilliant, even though Shulk understands it. Roy will not let what he thinks will happen, happen. He is going to shift the perspective a bit. No one thinks Roy Arcadia is capable, he's heard the snickers and the hushed talk, and he's seen the glances.

No more.

He's going to prove them wrong, prove them all wrong.

He is capable.

He'll avenge Fiora himself, and avenge Shulk in a roundabout manner.

Roy goes to press his comm off against his better judgement. It leaves an open connection between the two, and Shulk could hear what is happening down on the redhead's end. As he does this however, he is distracted from his walking, looking down at his feet.

Something shoots out of the darkness, a tendril perhaps, an iron cord... Roy does not know what it is. It wraps around his right ankle, throwing the redhead to the ground. He yelps out in pain as his head collides with the stone, sewage water starting to slide across his back. He flips himself around, trying to crawl his way back to the fork in the path.

Another strange cord, device, or tendril... whatever it truly is, wraps around Roy's left ankle, starting to drag him.

"Shulk!" he screams out in panic. "Shulk, help me!"

Without another instance to cry for help, the cords pull at Roy, and he goes plummeting through the darkness, swallowed by the sector of the sewer.

Alongside the wall, the lights shatter, and all that remains in the pool of glass is the amber light, burning with the intensity of the sun.

Roy is in Ganondorf's lair now.

On the cyborg's terms only.

The redhead's shouts dissipate against the stone, before breaking as the blackness swallows him whole.

* * *

 **Well, holy hell. That was Chapter #33: Mortar Mess, and here we are with another 14.5k chapter written in less than two days. I am exhausted and very happy to have gotten this chapter out. A lot has happened, and now every single character left alive in Syrenet with the exception of Lucas to Shulk is separated from each other. Marth is still in the Detroit hospital, Midna fell underground, Snake is left above ground in the warzone, Robin got taken away by strangers, Shulk is marching lonesome to the Needle, Corrin is flying back to D.C, Sheik is fighting alone in her rebel force, Lucas alienated himself from his commander, Pit is trapped on one side of the sewers, and Ike the other. Hot damn that's what I call division.**

 **Yes, a lot has happened, and yes there is _plenty_ more to come. I cannot believe I just typed this out in the speed that I did, but I really do want to finish this story soon, as we're so close. I can't believe the word count either, I'll admit. Goodness. What was your favorite of the six sections in this chapter, with each decisive event happening? I'm curious. Did anyone die this chapter, you think? Also curious. **

**The next chapter, Chapter #34: The Canary and the Viper, will be probably out some time next week, with another chapter of Brinstar Depths as well, since I'm trying to do one or two updates of each before I flip to the other Smash story in progress. Please review and let me know what you thought! I am so excited for the next step, as we're near the half-mark of the arc, which you know means a downward slide. I love you all! Thanks for being such amazing readers! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	34. Chapter 34: The Canary and the Viper

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #34: The Canary and the Viper, which I suppose I am being entirely too on the nose about, but eh, I digress. Just like all the last two chapters before this, there is to be a lot that goes on since the end is near... last chapter dealt with Ike and Pit going into the sewers after Shulk and Roy, the fight above ground in Detroit getting worse, Robin getting taken, Midna falling lower underground, Ganondorf speaking to Lucas inside the AI Unit disc, Ike and Pit getting separated, and Roy thinking he was strong enough to take down Ganondorf by his lonesome... Review replies!**

 **Dusk Aura- Wow it's been like a whole year since you've reviewed! Glad to have ya back! I am happy you find this exciting, because I am still cranking things up an extra notch. Huh, only person in the world who is suspicious of our white-haired vice president... because she's too normal? In that case, Roy should be under your eye too.**

 **Metroid-Killer- That should be a catchphrase: 'kicking off even more' since I never slow the roll down on these chapters, do I? You and I had a discussion about Lucas, and I do think you're shooting for the stars a bit higher than you need to. You think Shulk and Corrin are Sheik's biological parents? You might want to revisit some earlier chapters. Oh, yeah, Roy's screwed, and also primitively because his suit, while he can use it, he has to manually log through all the commands instead of having an AI Unit do them automatically... almost like a single farmer planting seeds versus a tractor or something.**

 **CrashGuy01- I am going to say it's a good thing you're processing it in due time. Interesting that the cross-fire is your favorite part, because I suck at action. Preface, Robin is not losing her mind; she's just scared as I am willing to bet a lot of us would be in that moment. You think our trio will die? Interesting... anyone else? And you know me. If they didn't die on screen, they didn't die. Ah, Sheik... interesting you mention her.**

 **This will be another long-winded chapter that will break 10k, so sit down, strap yourselves in, and enjoy Chapter #34: The Canary and the Viper.**

* * *

Midna has a killer headache. She groans, shielding her eyes from the sun. Where is she? She has no idea. All she remembers is Snake looking at her worriedly, the ground trembling, and darkness rushing up to meet her. It is all Sheik's fault, the blonde losing her damn mind against the Syrenet team, for reasons she still cannot believe. She is lying in a heap of cinderblocks, concrete, gravel, and steel. Her body aches, having fallen who knows how many feet on a slab of solid ground, but nothing seems broken. Pain fills her sore limbs, a tide rushing to meet the sandy shore, as she struggles to get to her feet. Midna wobbles slightly, steadying herself. Where did she end up?

She looks up, and sure enough, she's standing underneath a hole, where above, a good hundred feet at least, is the Detroit cityscape. Her eyes widen at the thought. How is she unscathed? The sky is smoldering now, from billows of smoke spilling into the cerulean sky, hazardous and evil, choking the air and those who breathe it. Midna wonders what the destruction of the city must look like, she can hear the faint sounds of gunfire still, screaming - both pain and trying to instill fear in the enemy - and the quite drumming of bombs exploding. The bombs... her blood runs cold, those bombs were Link Collins invention, sold to Sheik, the only actual device given to them after he had swindled her.

It is an unbelievable thing to the redhead, to get told by Link, who she had tailed for two and half weeks, and the man had been getting accustomed to her company, all of a sudden seeing Sheik Braring, who she hasn't seen in years. They've spoken over the phone for countless hours, using those childish names of Ocarina and Amber, but never, in a million years, did Midna suspect that her friend from forever ago would be the main ring leader in a rebel group currently laying siege to a city. As if she thought she ever really _knew_ her...

Her heart had seized up in her throat, as she stares into the haunting diamond eyed stare from a long lost friend, a ghost who has appeared in front of her. When she asks Link who the client is, all she gets in response is him biting down on a trademark cigar, smiling as large as he can, and saying, "She's got spunk, and fire, and she's also quite the kickass..." which sums up most of the arms dealer's phrasing usually. She has not thought about Boston in quite some time, where everything seemed simple... to how she's ended up here, in a foreign country still in her _own_ country - that is quite backwards thinking, Midna realizes - from simply getting reconnaissance on an alleged arms dealer doing illegal, non-governmental work, to then be fighting off someone she may have deemed as family, falling through subways, and ending up in the depths of Detroit.

It'd make for one hell of an autobiography, or a postcard, she thinks amusedly.

She has been so caught up in her thoughts, that something finally hits her. Midna gags, holding a hand up to plug her nose. The stench is horrendous. She realizes, rather late, the explosion took her section of the downtown street and plummeted her so far, through the subway system, into the sewers. Midna looks back at the hole. She is not going to be able to jump back up, and even if she tried, her hamstrings are killing her. She cannot just sit here however, the agent must do something. There'll have to be another way out, and all she has to do is regroup. Midna will be safe then.

Whatever safe truly does even stand for, at this point. It's all a mystery, and Midna has no idea. She gingerly touches her forehead, happy to see that when she returns her hand back to her gaze, there are not any copper smears alongside her flesh; there's no serious wound to the head, which is good. It'd be worse to be disorientated, wounded, and lost in the Detroit sewers. Now she's just lost. Perfect.

Does she still have her gun? Her mind thinks this, fleeting with panic. She pats herself down, coming up empty. Midna takes a deep breath. She's lost her workout bag, she lost her phone, and she does not have her comm device with her. It is certainly a first for her, being dropped, quite literally, into such a terrible place with no tool other than her grit and instinct to get her out of it.

Where is everyone else? The last she sees of Snake is her boss shouting at her in horror, hands around his weapons, with Robin running away from it all, her body a mere speck of white off in the distance. Everyone else must be back at the headquarters... okay, the trio are perhaps the only ones separated from one another. That's perfectly okay, Midna can cope with this. The Syrenet team won't just leave her... would they?

What did Shulk say one time, all those days ago in the Chicago hospital?

" _You're not part of the team, Midna, nor your play thing..._ " which is a remark that's sure to leave some scars. One commander's opinion certainly is not the voice of the whole group. Midna knows she's valued, and she will not be forgotten in the sewers of this wretched city unless the city itself comes down upon her. Okay... happy thoughts, she tells herself. Thinking of the negative will certainly breed negative.

She pats herself all over once more, nothing out of place, and there's also nothing missing except a few years off of her life from that fall. Midna fell into a corner section of the sewer, at a turn, where both directions lead into the darkness, an incorrigible darkness, and here she is without her equipment to guide her way. The sewer tunnel shakes every now and then, from Sheik's devices, which may just cause the entire city to collapse if that is the goal the blonde rebel leader is aiming for, but for now, it is Midna's escape route.

Midna tilts her head, having looked down.

There's all these strange devices up against the side, transparent cubes that are made of glass, and inside them, a bulb. She watches, curiously, as the lights flicker a stunning amber - _Amber, this is Ocarina speaking... Amber do you copy?_ \- in a sequence that does not resemble Morse. Occasionally the blips will happen fast, and the entire corner and the extensions into the darkness will be shrouded in an eerie haze of red, before blackening away, but often they're numerous and slow, which Midna interprets to be a warning. A warning of what, though?

The agent is indecisive. There's an exit somewhere, perhaps in both directions should she be so brave. Would these amber lights be a path? Someone guiding her on her merry way?

She switches her gaze left and right multiple times, itching to step forward, when her blood runs ice cold. What is that sound? Midna pauses, when she hears it again. It is very quiet, more than likely an echo of whatever is causing the noise. That means there's someone or something near her making the noise if this is possible. Her body tenses, as she cranes forward to hear it some more, when it comes again.

It's a scream.

The voice sounds masculine.

Midna widens her eyes. No way... that couldn't- it possibly couldn't be...

She hears it again, this time louder, as if the person screaming is throwing more of their voice into it.

"I'm coming!" Midna screams, running to her left in the direction of the sound.

"Roy!"

* * *

Shulk does not know how long the walk to the Needle is going to take, with Lucas having gone dark. Every so often the commander tosses his head back behind him, half expecting Roy to run up from the darkness, terrified out of his mind, needing to stay by his partner in crime, but nothing happens. No sound reaches his ears except that of his own shoes making ghastly echoes against the sewer walls. Silence is golden. Corrin would agree with him. He likes silence, Shulk does, as it allows for him to have precious time to think. Unlike having the redhead by his side, chatting up his ear every five seconds.

He has had a long time to think, probably having only been ten minutes or so since he parted ways with Roy at the fork in the path, but these ten minutes have been filled with thoughts unlike any other. His mind dances back and forth between Ganondorf and Corrin, this elusive soul who so hauntingly describes Fiora... he has no idea why this demon would just admit to something like that. He's been questioning for three years straight the identity of his wife's murderer, and here the man or creature steps forward and proudly proclaims it as if he's giving a sermon on a mountaintop. Roy's words make sense, but something blocks the directional flow, as if a pane of glass has diverted the normal thought process. His comrade's logic makes the upmost perfect sense, a challenge is demanded, you go and meet the challenge head on with as much grit as you can muster.

"But good soldiers follow orders..." he tells himself, rubbing his arms.

The mission comes first, it has always come first. He sits down, waiting for her, and he does what she says, what the silver queen tells him to do because it is his job. He's hired, above everyone else, above all the candidates, because she sees something in him. She skips her own husband to sleep with him because she sees something in him, and it fills Shulk with a pride unlike any other. Fiora is something special, he'll admit... but Corrin, but President Corrin Etch has to triumph over everything as she sits on her silver throne. Breaking a glass ceiling will bring everyone else to their knees, to see the awe and power that is Corrin which the entire country, with their stupid rebel groups, have decided to see.

There's a single flaw in Roy's thinking. If he is to perform Operation Glass Ceiling, dealing with Ganondorf will make it so much easier than just bringing two guns to a fight. He'll have everything and more, should the Needle prove to be an excellent ally. The redhead's urgency is weird, he has never seen Roy speak with such conviction on anything. Yes, Shulk does not need to be told twice that he has pined about his wife for three years straight and done nothing about it. He doesn't have the exact right to go in and bring the entire country down. What he needs is a scapegoat, an opportunity, and Corrin has presented one to him all wrapped up in a pretty silver bow.

He's waited to meet Fiora's killer face-to-face for three whole years since he heard about it. What is an extra hour and a half going to hurt?

Shulk is dying to see Corrin's face when this entire mess is over, when he has successfully done what she's asked, being the only person in the entire world to not let her down. As sad as it is to think, Fiora let the president down. She went and got killed on an important mission, and Shulk is puzzled at how his wife could have made such a controversial mistake... his wife had been the best fighter he had ever seen and somehow she dies... it is too upsetting. Cloud has failed her. Mac fails her left and right... Ness is a failure... even poor Lucas, trapped inside Shulk's helmet, is failing the president despite his contributions. However, if Shulk does everything right, then he'll be elevated higher than the rest, singled out like he had been all those days and years ago, a soldier in waiting to now become a commander.

Her hands lace through his hair, fingers knitting hair follicles together, and their touch is warm. Her lips are snug against the area between his shoulder blades, her arms dropped against his while she kisses his neck. They aren't wearing rings, goodness it'd make it too noticeable, certainly he'd suspect, not Shulk, but another man, the _he,_ who had to disappear forever so he could be with her.

 _"Do you love me, commander?"_

 _"It's whatever you demand..."_

 _"And if I demanded you to kill for me? Would you do it?"_

 _"In a heartbeat..."_

Those promises are what has left Shulk vacant. He's enacted on these promises, yet he still feels empty, even slightly vindicated if he's willing to go that far. She holds out her hand, with those temping fingers beckoning him closer, and he's running to her, while his wife's name lingers on his lips, the morsel of tasted wine that clashes with her own lips, and now there's a coagulated mess mixing inside his heart. He isn't cheating anymore, by being with her. She's rotting in the ground, all sewn up from the damage extensively done to her neck.

He is angry, hearing what Ganondorf taunts him with. There's a time and place for everything, and the taunting voice in the ceiling shall have his comeuppance when Shulk is ready.

The commander takes a quick breather up against the sewer wall, his Syrenet suit making clanking noises as it touches the stone. He opens the backpack he had placed on his back, reaching for a canteen of water. He lifts the visor up from his eyes so he can take a drink, when a blipping noise off the side of his helmet goes off. The canteen pauses, halfway from his lips. That noise belongs to when the AI Unit disc is wishing to be removed from the helmet so the commander and his technological buddy can speak to each other. Lucas is probably wishing to come out of hiding after being away for so long.

Shulk places the canteen of water down on the ground next to him, then removing Lucas's disc from the side of the helmet. He turns it on, holding it in his hand so the AI Unit's projection to be standing in front of him. Lucas appears, still dressed in his usual outwardly appearance, hair still blonde, but Shulk notices something erroneous. The typical bubbly air that causes the hub around the projection to shimmer is subdued, a bit more quiet, which usually is not an occurrence that happens unless something is on Lucas's mind.

He does not get in the first word however. Lucas looks about, before returning center, frowning. "Where's Roy?"

"We came to a fork in the road and decided to split up," Shulk answers, lying. He hates having to lie to the little guy, after all they have been to, but he's got to have someone remain alive in the end when the Operation is over and done with. There's too much at stake to even lose the one little semblance of the earlier days that he has. If he loses Lucas... Shulk might actually think of doing the unthinkable. It is one thing the silver queen will not take away from him, after taking all the others Shulk's cared for in his life.

"Is it safe for me to come out now?" the AI Unit shuffles his feet.

"I would not have allowed you to speak to me if that was not the case."

Something is being held back, Shulk can see it in the way Lucas's gaze skirts around, not staying in one place, not being centered. What's eating him? "May I ask what happened?"

Shulk takes a deep breath. "Let's just say an unwanted guest decided to taunt Roy and I about our presence here in these sewers. He challenged me to a duel, and I refused. Because of-"

"Operation Glass Ceiling," the AI Unit finishes for him. Another pause, another shifting of Lucas's feet, the boy twisting his holographic shirt in his holographic hands, frowning. "That's actually what I wanted you to talk about..."

This rings all sorts of alarm bells off in Shulk's head. There should be nothing to discuss, given he's set the rules down already, although his AI Unit is quite the curious soul after all. The commander crosses his arms, while the tunnel shakes. It's been shaking more than normal, as he understands the sewer system being below the subway has the requisite shaking and all, but this, _this_ is ludicrous. He blinks, frowning.

"What about it?"

"Are we doing a good thing?" Lucas asks.

Shulk furrows his eyebrows together, mouthing the words his AI Unit spoke. What exactly qualifies something for it to destitute as a 'good' thing? He's been straightforward on what Corrin has asked him to do. Yes, he's left a few copious details out, and perhaps a couple murders, but that is not what he has to worry about right in the moment. Once he's done, and once Corrin rewards him, then everything will be okay. "What do you mean?"

"Well, someone told me..."

That is not something Shulk likes to hear right in that moment. He makes a face. "Someone? Who is this someone?" he pinches the bridge of his nose. "Lucas, your AI disc was off, meaning you should not have had any interaction with anyone, including me. Who would have had access to-"

"Some guy named Ganondorf told me I had to stop you from using the Needle and that it would kill a whole bunch of people and that I needed to ask you about Ness and-" Lucas starts, words spilling out in a stream of endlessness, overflowing Shulk's mind. Several things hit at him.

Firstly, that Lucas is way over his head trying to tell what Shulk should do in anything. Lucas is trapped in his bubble, his holographic projection and a fantasy world designed by brats with wings, yet he has the gall, regardless of the two's relationship to make moralistic calls on him? How dare he! Secondly, the constant bringing up of Ness... what is so important about another digital piece of software? It is not like Lucas spent years and years forging some 'friendship' with the computer program, yet all that consumes the blonde boy's mind is talking about Roy's damn AI Unit. Does his AI Unit just like opening all of these cans of worms? Then the name registers in his mind.

Ganondorf.

The same Ganondorf that spoke to Shulk through the intercom.

The same Ganondorf who murdered the other council members.

The same Ganondorf which is the cause for his wife's death.

And now this winged beast is lurking in places he shouldn't be. Not Lucas. No one can corrupt Lucas.

Shulk's eyebrows crunch together in fury. "Ganondorf?" his voice raised into a hiss. "Lucas, that _thing_ is what taunted Roy and I! Don't listen to a word he says. He's just lying. Ganondorf killed Fiora, and if you're not careful, he's going to kill you too!"

"Like you did with Ness?" Lucas flashes a glare.

"Why do you say that?"

"He told me you killed him!"

"So what if I did? Lucas, I already told you why-"

"But Ness was my friend!"

"Orders _are_ orders, Lucas!" Shulk screams at the AI Unit, his voice echoing off of the sewers walls, dissipating in a faint hiss down into the blackness. A surging tide of rage rushes into the commander's veins, his skin burning in anger, blood simmering, while Lucas steps back slightly onto his disc. "Ness did something he shouldn't have done and so Corrin ordered me to terminate him. Ness came to a conjoined decision with me," he does not want to lie, but lying is the only thing that is going to save his skin at this point in the game, with everyone wanting to jump down his throat like they know any better. "I'm sorry, but I can't just disobey what Corrin tells me to do!"

Lucas falters, closing his eyes. Shulk's body releases its built up tension, his shoulders relaxing. He shouldn't have yelled, it is impulsive of him, and no matter how smart his AI Unit truly is, at the core, he's still a child when looking at the humanistic level, and screaming at Lucas is not going to solve the problem. However, he's not done. Ganondorf is the reason this conversation is happening. How long has he been inside his AI Unit's head, and what has he told him?

The AI Unit shivers noticeably. "I still don't think that Glass-"

"You _do not_ believe that liar, do you?" Shulk throws his free hand up.

"He said that a lot of people will die if-"

"When this is done, a lot of people _are_ going to die, Lucas! The rebel forces are going to be screwed! I can't do it without your help though."

Lucas makes a defied face, sticking his head up in the air, nose pointed upwards, an air of defiance filling his empty space. "I can't go through with this, Shulk. I'm sorry..."

The holographic disc flickers some, before Lucas's projection vanishes, back into the software he goes, leaving Shulk leaning up against the sewer wall, dumfounded. What is going on? What on Earth did Ganondorf tell his AI Unit? Shulk grits his teeth. That doesn't matter, none of it matters anymore except pleasing Corrin and getting the job done, what he had been ordered to do. He looks down at the disc, his rage starting to build again.

"Fine," he says. "I can do this alone, Lucas. If you aren't going to help me, then there's no need to tag you along. You can't sabotage this from happening."

Shulk holds the disc in his left hand, his fingers bending slightly like he's going to make a fist. He hesitates, his lip quivering. At the end of the day, all said and done, Lucas is his son, the child he never got to have. The two have been through years of troublesome fights, shoot-outs, birthday parties, and life in general in D.C and abroad while under Syrenet's helm, yet his AI Unit wants to go searching down paths that will lead to nothing but an endless wall. Fine, if that is what Lucas wishes to do, it is not the commander's place to stop him.

He may regret what he is about to do, but Corrin comes first. No one will harm Lucas, other than Shulk himself, as a parent does to teach their child a lesson. It may pain the son, but it is worse on the parent, a thousand times worse. Shulk swallows any last regrets.

The commander closes his fist, the AI disc crunching underneath his grip.

He puts his fist behind him, dropping the fragments and shell of the disc to the ground.

Shulk steps away from his position on the wall, continuing his journey to the Needle, not waiting to see the pieces hit the ground.

If Lucas wishes to not go along with the rules, then the rules will not let Lucas go along either.

There's always someone else.

* * *

Robin has heard of taking blind leaps of faith, but this is an entirely different matter, she'll admit. The vice president is sitting in the back of what she presumes to be a van, men dressed in black and white suits sitting around her like a flock of hens. A blindfold is placed over her eyes so she cannot see anything, and she's too afraid to move her arms in case she's reprimanded. She has seen the secret service detail every day while in D.C, and unless there's been some widespread firing going around and that there have been new agents posted to them, she does not recognize any of the men in the car before the blindfold is put on, and she does not recognize their voices.

None of them are Mac, which pains her, that she is used to the boxer's warm voice, where now all the remains of him is ashes. The city of Detroit must still be burning around them, but she is unsure exactly where she's headed. No one in the city except the council, who are all dead, as she remembers, knows of their presence, so who are these men? Her mind automatically fills in the blank, it must be the secret service saving her, but why would they not pick up Snake as well? He's in danger, fighting in a warzone for people he should not have loyalty to, but he's there nonetheless, his honor standing out.

She's afraid to speak. Something creeps in the back of her mind, that this is not normal, that she'd be notified by someone in the vehicle if this had been a rescue operation, and usually only Corrin can make that call. Robin realizes, with sudden panic, concerning Corrin, she has no idea where the President is. Snake wouldn't give her any answers while she had badgered him, about what Ganondorf had told him in the building that would serve as a presumable base for starting off. It must only be a pile of cinderblocks and smoldering rocks now, with the bombs and violence going off. The silverette's whereabouts are unknown, at least to Robin, but she deduces that Corrin is safe. Even when the world is coming to an end, somehow Corrin Etch is able to escape unscathed, while the others are bleeding.

As if she's the reason the world is coming to an end. A puppeteer holding the strings, while the marionette dolls skirt away on carpeted floors, cackling, always cackling. Robin's throat is dry, noticing this as she swallows, which means she's nervous, if her heartbeat is not the indicator. Explosions still rock the car, and she can hear the soft noise of gunshots dying off in the distance. When Robin is seized, the men and the van coming out of literal nowhere, as she turns around, she's searching for Snake, trying to get his attention, looking for Midna's amber shimmer, and there's nothing. Robin does not have the time to look again before the van is peeling away, and her questions go unanswered, her heart rate continues to race, and this very well may be the end of Syrenet's goals in trying to do things right.

It is a lingering thought that haunts Robin as she lays in beds at night, staring at the ceiling, making designs out of the etchings. What would be the reason for the attack on Detroit? The city never even got to have a branch be announced, unlucky as that is. It is going to be Robin's job to introduce the branch, and a thousand possible scenarios fill her head. Someone sniping her from the audience, or choking on her drink... and now with the rebel force bringing down the house, a crisis is averted and a thousand other ones take its place. She can only imagine the PR headache that this will be.

The van comes to a stop, but no one removes the blindfold. She's never heard anyone implicitly say to keep it on, but it has most definitely been implied, since the drive had been in silence. Robin remembers, and this had been such a long time ago now, perhaps the first week of Corrin's term after being sworn in, that the two design plans without the other knowing the specifics of how to keep each other safe in a time when one needs to get out of the situation immediately should they be separated.

Operation Canary.

That is what this must be, though Robin has no idea _what_ it is supposed to happen. She can assume that it means being reached for off the streets in a flash, being blindfolded so she cannot see where they are going. They must've taken her to an airfield, the blindfold a precautionary measure so she does not freak out depending on the carnage around them. She's safe. She's totally safe.

Someone opens the door next to her, guiding her out. Robin steps out of the van, the wind blowing her air, the sky thick with smoke and sulfurous, where she can taste it on her tongue, bitter and choking. She coughs, raising her hands, while the men surround her by the sound of their feet on what seems to be gravel. One of the men takes her by the arm, and she stumbles slightly over the pathway, catching herself before she face plants onto the stone. She's guided back up, starting to shake. She hates not having the ability to see.

There's the creaking sound of a door swinging open, so perhaps it isn't an airport or plane like she guessed. A holding room? A place to hide out and wait for reinforcements or the action to calm down, maybe in a remote location... Robin's nerves are settling themselves with each passing second. Someone flicks a light switch, evident by the flush of light that brings clarity to the vice president for a split second.

Unknown, fully to her, she's in a decent sized room, forty by forty feet, with tables and chairs strewn everywhere. A single chair sits in the middle of the room, almost like one found in a dentist office. One of the men, off to her left, Robin thinks, or maybe her right, she can't tell, tells another to help her sit down. She stumbles over that as well, her face burning a bright red. This must be so embarrassing for them to see. She is sitting against the chair, frowning. The material is weird... she had been expecting hard, solid plastic, not a cushion, and when she plants her feet firmly on the ground, it makes a soft _puh_ noise.

It's carpet. Carpet? She had been expecting tile.

Another stranger, different than the last, speaks into a walkie-talkie. "Operation Canary is ready, Madam President."

A wave of reassurance passes over her. They're in a direct line with Corrin. That's good, that's good.

Something shifts however, when the next noise she hears is the sound of someone cocking back a gun. Her eyes widen behind the blindfold, hands still by her side. That has to be a gun, there's no other explanation. Why a gun? The noise of the room shifts around her, and she can slightly see people situated around her in a circle. The sound of shoes on the carpet trail to exactly behind her, with a man heavily breathing above her.

Robin goes completely still, her breath seizing up in her throat. Something cold and metallic presses up against the back of her head. It's the barrel of the gun. Her heart beats faster in her chest. This is not Operation Canary. Corrin would not have some sort of plan to execute her vice president. This must all be a misunderstanding... it must all be a misunderstanding.

"I need you to stay completely still, Miss Wyndel," the man behind her instructs. "I'm going to count to three, and when I do, this will put you to sleep. It will be entirely painless."

He's lying, she knows it. Beads of sweat start to trickle down her face. If she lifts her hands now, the other men around her will just push them back down. This bullet, he cannot fool her, will be going into her skull no matter what.

"One..."

Robin has heard of people repenting before their end comes. She might as well.

"Two..."

It still must be a misunderstanding...

"Th-" but the man never gets to finish.

The sound of bullet goes off, Robin squeezing her eyes shut, waiting for the pain to come, waiting for the explosion in the back of her head, waiting for the blood to pour down her neck and to taint her hair with crimson flecks, but nothing happens. There's a slight pause, a stasis of stunned silence, and the cold barrel of the gun goes away from the back of her head, someone falling to the floor.

The room must be just as stunned like she is, for the men in the room are unable to register when someone bashes the front door in, steps in, gun in hand, shooting them all dead. Robin screams when the second round of gunfire happens, shaking, her voice rising higher and higher. A third gunshot, a fourth... fifth... sixth, and a seventh, before it all falls quiet.

Something begins to pool around her shoes, and Robin has a damn good idea as to what it is. Her screaming does not cease, someone rushing over to her.

"Robin!" the person cries, their voice masculine. The blindfold is ripped away from her eyes, and Robin continues to freak out, shrieking, batting her arms away at whomever the stranger is. "Robin, calm down! It's me, it's me!" She recognizes the voice immediately, and when her terror lapse passes over her, she's staring into Snake's eyes, the FBI director covered in blood, his breathing shallow. "It's me..." he says again, the vice president trembling. "You're okay now."

She throws her arms around him, sobbing into his shoulder. "They tried to kill me, Snake! They tried to kill me..." Robin continues to cry, her tears soaking his back.

"Shh..." he whispers, patting her head, soothing her. "I know, I know. It's okay now... you're safe..."

Snake turns his head, face grim.

While the two hug and sob in the center, around the dentist like chair is the seven bodies of the men. While Snake does not recognize them, he recognizes their clothes as definite secret service agent attire... with the logo, the exact outfitting's... an impossible task for some random killer or group of vagrants to just have handy.

These men are hired killers... hired from the U.S government to kidnap and kill the vice president. Only given by an order, clearly.

Who would order this?

Unfortunately, for Snake, he has no idea.

* * *

From the moment Ike is separated from Pit via the subway system falling between them, he's starting to use all the oxygen around him. He coughs into the crook of his elbow, the cough full of dust and phlegm. He thinks he's about to get sick, or in the motions of getting sick, which is not going to be great. Ike stands there between the collapsed stone barrier, pounding his fist against it, shouting Pit's name until his throat goes raw from the yelling. The tremors continue above ground, and in his heart.

This is absolutely insane. Ike can only imagine what the above ground must look like, scorched all over, burnt and tattered, who knows how many people just lying around. There's nothing to do but walk, and there's nothing to do while he's walking except think. Ike has never considered himself to be a scholar by any sort of means, but when he's surrounded by darkness, trying to find a way out, he must admit, there's a certain distinctiveness to it.

He's starting to put the blame on things that are out of his control, now. It is all Corrin's fault for the crew being thrown into this position. It had never been really an issue before, doing Syrenet missions around the globe, but the moment she centers them in their own country, everything goes awry. Ike smiles, in slight nostalgia, at some earlier missions, when he's slightly younger and when his hair is definitely less bluer. There's a three week stint in Geneva stopping a drug-trafficking ring, which involves Ike getting too close to comfort with a knife that traces dangerous lines into his hip bones. He wears them as a badge of honor now, showing them to anyone who cares to listen or see.

Marth does not find them funny, and it's the first moment the two have where they bond. Ike has been freshly cut up, dancing with the devil face to face, grinning all the while as he tiptoes on the balls of his feet around the tiled floor. He's showing off the scars at some bar with other Syrenet employees from other squads, lifting up his shirt for all to see, expletives being passed around, and then...

 _Someone is sitting in the far corner of the bar, head down, face buried in some book where Ike cannot read the title. The stranger lifts their head up, and Ike is staring face-to-face with a man he's never seen before, but clearly a Syrenet worker since the bar is only for Syrenet agents, no normal patrons allowed on specific Tuesday and Thursday nights. Ike senses judgment in the man's gaze, a beryl blue that rivets him to the core. He senses disproval, and a definite distaste in his actions. The man is wearing a hat, covering his head, dressed finely in a dress shirt and slacks._

 _After a few drinks - well, more than four - he stumbles over, plopping himself on the chair across from him, propping his feet up. It is the same thing he does all the way back in D.C after Oklahoma City, and the man looks up, glaring at him._

 _"May you please put your feet down? Is this your home?"_

 _"Have we met?" Ike frowns._

 _"I'd remember your manners and couth," the man says, "Or rather, lack thereof..."_

 _"I can sense you don't like me very much."_

 _"Oh? Telling..."_

 _"Your name?"_

 _The man closes his book, removing his hat from his head. "Marth Lowell..."_

 _Ike smiles. Marth's hair is blue, just like his own, and he's still getting used to all the stares from people when he's in public. Obviously shades of blue are not natural colors to dye your hair. "I thought I was the only one who had blue hair..."_

 _"What made you want to dye it?" Marth asks._

 _"Charity," Ike runs a hand through it, expecting his fingers to be smudged in cerulean dye. "You?"_

 _Marth gives a thousand yard stare, locking his jaw, looking elsewhere from Ike's general area. "A dare..." he says, his tone low and haunting. Ike averts his eyes, the darkness does not cancel out the word. He associates dare to be something slightly more slapstick, a bit more comical. This is not the same level. It's worse. "I dyed it on a dare, and I like it too much."_

 _"Same here. You want me to buy you a drink?"_

 _The other man leers his eyes. "Are you flirting with me?"_

 _"No," Ike grins. "Not unless you want me to."_

 _"I'm okay," Marth seems to lighten up some. "Drinking isn't my specialty."_

 _Ike curls a hand around the beer bottle, his eyes clouded with lust and green light. "Then you aren't a real man, my friend..."_

 _"Is that so?" Marth tilts his head up. "Because I don't drink?" the two share an amused glance, before laughing. He pushes the book away from him somewhat. "Are you a commander or just a soldier?"_

 _"A commander," Ike says smugly, crossing his arms. "Appointed by President Corrin herself. Charlie squad."_

 _"Ah, that's great!" the other bluenette smiles warmly, opening his book back up. "I'm a commander as well. Appointed by President Corrin..." and he holds for gravitas. "The commander of Beta squad..."_

 _It is a wound to Ike's heart. That means this guy sitting in front of him has a higher ranking than he does, and is only one level below Shulk. How- how dare... dammit. It just happens to be someone who doesn't like his actions could very well get him fired. "A higher rank than me..." Ike comments. "That must mean we'll be working together a lot from now on, won't it?"_

 _"Such a shame..." Marth makes a clucking noise with his tongue._

 _Ike laughs heartily. "Man, I like you..."_

 _"Shame for that too..."_

 _He leans back. "I can sense you don't think very highly of me..."_

 _"Oh?" Marth raises an eyebrow. "What gave that away?"_

 _"Your demeanor."_

 _"Figured."_

 _"What am I doing wrong?"_

 _"I've never seen someone parade their injuries," Marth comments._

 _Ike shakes his head, frowning. "They're not injuries, commander. I went on my first mission leading a squad, danced with the devil, and lived. These aren't scars. They're medals of honor."_

Those were good times, which Ike has interrupted when his foot steps down on something, hearing a crunching noise. He frowns, recoiling back somewhat, lifting his foot. He's not in a bar and Marth is not with him. He's stuck in the sewer, finding his own way out, his suit slightly obsolete... Ike's heart sinks.

He had stepped on an AI Unit disc, evident by the color and structure of the several rings. Besides himself, there's Pit, Roy, and Shulk from Syrenet, for all he knows, down in the sewers. His AI Unit, Lyn, is in his helmet. Pit and Roy don't have one, since the technician never wanted one, and there's Ness's sad fate. This only could be one AI Unit, and it can only belong to one commander.

It's Lucas.

He picks up several of the shards in his hands, eyes saddening at the sight.

"Lucas..." he whispers. "What happened to you?"

For a brief second, he's expecting the disc fragments to light up in their blue halo, and for the happy blonde to reappear, but nothing happens. He's all alone, and the mystery still remains.

Ike holds the shards close to his chest.

Whomever did this is going to pay.

It is time Syrenet comes back on the rise.

* * *

Roy has seen this situation before, and he can say with extreme fortitude that just like before, all the way back with Link, he is not appreciating the scenario. He's sitting in a chair, in some room, mirroring his encounter with the arms dealer, but unlike earlier, he's not naked. The pieces of his Syrenet suit lay in the corner, discarded everywhere, but nothing's happened to it as far as he can see. His arms are behind his back, coiled up in the tendrils of something metallic, he assumes to be wires, but there's nothing physically burning him like before. He can move quite far forward, his shoulders having a large range of freedom, but he's unable to stand, given some wires have locked his ankles to the base of the chair.

Back in the sewers, when the wires had coiled around him before, throwing Roy to the ground, getting dragged through the sewer water knocks him out, cold clocking him. When he comes to, he's stuck like this, and someone standing in the center of the room he's in, up against a workbench. The room is an awkward blend of trash and technology, with computer processors and screens on one side, and the other covered in papers and messes that he is unable to discern from. He knows exactly who is in the middle, observing him, picking their teeth with a toothpick.

It's Ganondorf.

"You know," Roy starts to say, as when has he ever had the first word and it ever gone well in an interrogation, right? "You could just untie me and we fight man to man. Instead of being a coward..."

Ganondorf lowers the toothpick, frowning, weighing his options. A good deal, perhaps, but it is not what he's bargained for. The gemstone in the middle of his forehead, the same color as the lights on the side of the sewer pathways, it is a color that will haunt Roy forever. A color that, should he ever see Midna again, with her scarlet hair, it'll be a battle to not associate the color with such an evilness. Roy has taken a good look at the council member, his body covered in chrome plating, wearing a cape and doublet that is the same shade of nasty brown as the floor. For someone who looks to be so elegant in the way he speaks and dresses, he couldn't have found a better location to live or hold his after hours business? He's a cyborg, which Roy had only ever thought to be from fantasy. Not having something appear to him in the flesh, a half-human, half-robot freak.

The cyborg shakes his head dismally. "You don't seem to understand it, Mr. Arcadia. I asked Commander Roberts specifically for him. Instead, he sends me you, his wasted side-kick. I'm sorry to say I'm extremely disappointed..."

Roy tilts his head to the side somewhat. "Untie me and I'll challenge that disapproval."

"You like gambling with death, Mr. Arcadia?"

"No."

"Then stop trying to antagonize me. It's not going to work."

He breaks a smile, sweat pouring down his forehead, trying to struggle out of the bonds which instinctively tighten around him, as if they're live beings, snakes almost that respond to stimuli. "Trust me, it's my job. To antagonize."

"You're doing an awful job at it..."

"Is this all we're going to do?" Roy sneers. "You're just going to talk to me and I'm going to talk to you until Shulk shows up?"

"He would come for you, wouldn't he? If he knew you were in trouble?"

"Absolutely!" the redhead shouts bravely, but deep down, he kind of knows that this is not the case. After all, it is the commander's prerogative he goes back and saves his skin, to run away from the mission like a little girl and hide in the corner like some damsel. He's a Syrenet agent, for God's sake, picked by the damn president to join an elite circle of government fighters, and someone is going to tell him that ' _orders are orders_ '. Bullshit. It's just an excuse. As far as Shulk knows, though, Roy realizes, the commander probably believes that he _did_ go back for safety instead of trying to forge on ahead.

Ganondorf makes a mocking smile, showing his hideous teeth, stained and it causes Roy's skin to crawl. "You don't sound so sure of that, Mr. Arcadia. I'm tempted to believe you, but don't worry, we are not just going to talk." the cyborg stands away from the spot against the bench, revealing its contents to Roy. There's a power drill, tweezers, scissors, knives of multiple sorts, and all the water in Roy's mouth dries up. This isn't just a holding cell.

It's a torture chamber.

The worst he got from Link had been a stab wound to the leg that healed quite well, slowing his movements only for a bit, because the arms dealer did not know the exact spot to enter the blade. This, however, is a whole other beast entirely. All of the bravado in Roy's voice dies down to a dwindle, a star that had just been a supernova, and what remains is a husk, dry, desolate, with no light.

His sweating increases. "Li- like what? Like charades?"

"No," Ganondorf shakes his head. "Nothing like that," he runs a hand along the bench, giving a creepy smile back at Roy, who flinches. "I can tell what you're thinking. It's just like Mr. Collins isn't it? Tied up, undressed, with everyone watching... I can only imagine how humiliating that must've been for you," the redhead's heartbeat accelerates. How would he know of that? How would Ganondorf, who he has never seen before, know something so intimate? The other men in Link's gang were killed in the shootout, and the only other two people besides him alive were Midna and Snake, with Ness being decommissioned and all. "How did that knife feel going into your leg? You haven't really ever been injured, right? It must have been horrible... wasn't it?"

Roy swallows his fear, trying again to get free. His voice is shaky when he responds. "I- I have no idea what you're talking about..."

"Yes you do. I told you, Mr. Arcadia, I _see_ everything..."

"No one can see everything," the redhead balks. "You're not God!"

Ganondorf tilts his head to the side, like a cat eyeing its prey. He makes a triumphant grin. "On the contrary, Roy," the switching from formal to personal chills the Syrenet agent's blood to ice, slowing all the processes down, his nerves not computing back to him any message other than fright. "I am a god in my own right. A paragon. I've made these sewers my realm! I know my words shook both you and Commander Roberts to the core, did they not?"

"Because you're a murderer!" Roy spits out. "You killed Fiora! You killed his wife!"

"Because she overstepped her boundaries!" Ganondorf's eyes flash back in anger.

"She was pregnant! You murdered them both!"

"Yes, I did!" the cyborg marches right up to Roy's face, gripping him underneath the jaw, forcing him to look right into Ganondorf's stare. "And I enjoyed it, Mr. Arcadia! I enjoyed making that woman scream and beg for mercy because it proved to me my power. It proved to me that I have the ability to make others cower at my very voice, or at the mention of my name!" Roy tries looking elsewhere, anywhere, somewhere that is not in the cyborg's face. Ganondorf grips tighter. "Look at me, Mr. Arcadia," and nothing happens. "Look at me!" he screams, jostling the redhead out of his stupor in trying, looking back, fear reflected in his gaze. "I'm doing it to you now, and you don't even realize it. You're scared, Mr. Arcadia. Your emotions give you away..." He lets go of Roy's jaw.

He hangs his head low, breathing deeply. He cannot believe what he's hearing, that this sick creature in front of him, who certainly isn't human at this point, a beast that does not deserve that kindness of being relegated to the likes of him or Ike or Pit or Robin. Bile forms in his throat, but Roy keeps it there, the flaps burning, as he wishes to upheave terribly. Ganondorf returns to his work bench.

Roy spits some to the floor. "You're insane... you're insane..." he says weakly.

Ganondorf clucks his tongue in disappointment. "On the contrary, Mr. Arcadia, I like to call myself a visionary, just like you call yourself a warrior," he turns back around to his captive, "Which you have done an awful job at showing me. What did you think was going to happen walking down into my sector, without help, clearly disobeying my rules?" a pause, filled with silence and Roy's ragged breathing. "You wanted to be a hero, I understand that. Stand up to your commander who bosses you around, where you thought there had been something there, a friendship maybe. Bring revenge and vengeance to a murder of a woman you've never met. I've seen it all before, from men and women lesser than you, and those greater than you," Ganondorf sighs. "However, you've... you thought foolishly and with your emotions. I don't allow idiotic people in my kingdom, Mr. Arcadia..."

"Then teach me how to think smart..." It's worth a shot, and half of it comes from being a terrible joke.

The cyborg frowns. "You seem unable to be taught. You're too stubborn, I see it in your eyes," and he claps his hands together. "No, Mr. Arcadia, I cannot teach you anything. I have to _punish_ you for your insolence, and your stupidity," and Roy's skin covers itself in goosebumps. "In time you'll understand what I'm doing, but for now, it will hurt. A parent has to punish their children."

"I am not your child!" Roy shouts.

"No, you aren't, you're right," Ganondorf smirks. "Not yet." He begins to pace the room, walking around and behind Roy's chair, all the hair on his arms standing up on end. Roy does not like being unable to see his attacker or torturer head on, a tactic used wisely in these sort of scenarios. "After I had my copies slice the throats of the other twelve council members, which I'd say has been my best trick," he applauds himself, "I had told your president, your Madam Corrin that there was more like me. More of us, these cyborg humans, half Syrenet, half man..." another pause. "It was a white lie. There's no one else like me right now in the world. Just me, and that's what makes me special, Mr. Arcadia..." Ganondorf walks back to the bench, eyes alit with a rapturous fire. "I must say thank you for being here for this! Fiora was my first trial and error, my first attempt at making something beautiful, but it ended up going south, and I've learned from my mistakes," his hand picks up an iron rod that's resting against the back, and then one of the knives. Roy begins to tremble in his bonds, Ganondorf approaching. "You'll be the first success story, Mr. Arcadia. Fiora screamed when I began cutting her up and inserting Syrenetic technology. Will you be the same?"

Roy shakes back and forth, trying to get loose, his words failing to come out, until they do in a blubbering mess. "No, stay away from me! No, no nonononononononononono..."

Without warning, Ganondorf grips Roy's right hand, turning it over so his palm facing the front, lining the knife up to the underside of his pinkie. Roy is trembling, crying, pleading for mercy.

There's a slash downwards, scarlet spews everywhere, and the Syrenet agent's body arcs off the seat, his plead twisting into a terrified scream of agony.

* * *

Sheik will admit that she did not expect to see anyone else down in the sewers. Yes, she's seen the explosions and the giving way of the ground causing people to fall below, but she assumes it's to their deaths, from which no one can clearly recover. It's her fault, when she miscalculates one explosion, that brings her section of the Detroit downtown to crumble as well, and she falls into darkness, landing unharmed in a collection of furniture from a nearby furniture store that fell before. The carnage is evident, the fighting still on-going, and the number of casualties too great for her to think about. Everything fell apart in the middle, as she's consumed by greed, madness, and a need for vengeance.

However, she is surprised to now be standing in one of the tunnels, pressing a blade up against a man's neck that seems very familiar to her, someone she's seen before, but she cannot place her finger on it. He's handsome, she'll give the stranger that, his hair an odd shade of brilliant blue. She has him pinned against the wall, his arms out, his right hand loosely holding onto the barrel of a pistol that she has locked with her left arm so he can't get a finger around the trigger.

"Who are you?" she hisses. There's no answer. Sheik presses harder, the blade dangerously close to his Adam's apple. "Tell me or I'm slicing your throat!"

"Ike Forgenson," the man yelps, "Syrenet commander Ike Forgenson!"

Her heart elates. What are the odds of running into someone else in the sewers, and then to have them be a Syrenet member? It clicks with her, then, who he is. He's the same fellow she saw in Oklahoma City alongside the other commander, and then he's in Chicago as well, one of the people on the personnel team. Is it her lucky day? It very well may be so. What would he be doing down here, though? He does not look injured, which Sheik is unable to attribute to herself, being banged up via all these sort of cuts and slash marks, bleeding from some, dust caking her forehead, her blonde hair which had been tied back now in shambles, and she smells of smoke.

She hesitates, wanting to kill the man, this Ike, here and now. He's at her mercy, and she very well could if she wanted to. Hasn't this always been her goal? To stop Syrenet from completing their goal, from getting branches off the ground, and most importantly, from not letting them have access to the Needle? Why else would they be in Detroit? Sheik doesn't lower the knife, and she does not lighten up on the tension, but she does not bring her hand across his throat to make the finishing cut. She pauses, biting down on her lip.

The message from the beginning had been to end Syrenet; it's a clear cut goal. Then her package in the mail arrives and everything becomes confused. It's moreso now an attempt at ending anything from ever taking place, from letting Corrin get what she wants. Sheik is not fooled by the smiles and the public speeches, there's an evil hidden in that woman's eyes, who has kept it inside, so very well guarded for so long, that it will come out eventually when the president thinks nobody is watching.

How far does the corruption go? Would Corrin let anyone know anything? At all? She's not so sure the silverette would, and it's giving her a headache. Along the way, things have turned from bad to worse, things have been jumbled up and lost in transition. What did she tell Midna, her Amber, that one day while in the hotel lobby eating breakfast? Syrenet had just been a ruse for something crazy... like mind control, and with further reading on the Needle, it comes to light more than ever.

Sheik curses to herself. Things could get uglier still, but there's no turning back from it now.

"I'm not going to kill you," she says, and Ike's shoulders visibly relax. "I just want to talk. If you put your gun up, I'll put my knife away. Deal?"

"Deal..." Ike says, and she removes her grip, placing the blade back into its sheath, the Syrenet commander putting his weapon back into its holster.

Now, it's time for some digging.

"I'm sorry for doing that."

"Who are you?" Ike asks.

It's another path to cross, another decision that could very well end with Sheik having a snapped neck by the time this is said and done. Again, she's paved the path to hell all by her lonesome, with the destruction she's caused, she's ready to face her end, but not before Corrin is brought down in flames by someone else or by her own hands, the hands the president would least expect.

Sheik takes a deep breath. "I'm Sheik Braring."

She watches the bluenette frown, processing the name, and it hits her like a punch when the face transforms from confusion to realization to a surge of anger. The blonde is caught off guard, just slightly, when Ike's face distorts into a snarl. He grabs her around the throat, slamming her up against the sewer wall. Sheik's back is coated in a slime that she does not want to know where it came from. "What?" the man roars. "Do you have any _idea_ what you've done? What you've been doing? My friend is in the hospital and he'll never walk again because of you!" Ike screams, tightening his grip.

The rebel leader starts to choke, clawing at Ike's fist, but it is as if a kitten is scratching at a brick, there'll be no damage done to it. Scarlet spots fill her vision, and the already dwindling light of the tunnel begins to recede some more. This is not how she goes out. Sheik expects it to be a firing squad, or lethal ejection, or maybe just dying in her damn sleep if she's so lucky, but not getting the life visibly choked out of her by a man with outlandish hair in the worst place on planet Earth.

"I- I can explain..." she barely croaks out.

"Oh, can you?" Ike challenges. "You can explain being a terrorist?" he lets go of her throat, Sheik collapsing into the sewer basin. She coughs, sucking in breaths as fast as she can, wiping at her mouth. She can go for the knife, as she still has it, and this Syrenet commander can kill her, as much as he wants, they're both able, but she's promised, and it's one thing Sheik Braring does not do is go back on her promises. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just shoot you and be done with it?"

She sits down, flipping herself around. There isn't a real answer that she can give, nothing entirely full of sense. Sheik has been expecting death for quite some time now, surprised that it still hasn't happened, given the circumstances. If anyone is going to kill her, it'd be Midna, most definitely. "I can't," she coughs, letting out a shaky breath. "I can't give you a reason to spare me, at least not one you'll believe..."

Ike has a hand on his pistol, the sneaky bastard. He hesitates from unlatching it from the holster, and just shooting a silver bullet into her brain. It'd be a lot faster than discussing terms with her, that's for sure. "Try me. Entertain me, Sheik, on why you've killed hundreds of Americans and Syrenet workers for some rebel plan..."

Sheik actually cannot believe she's even gotten this far. She must be a great salesman. "The branch you work for, Syrenet, is not what you think it is. Not fully."

The commander scoffs, his laugh echoing along the pipes. "Are you shitting me? That's the best you can come up with?"

She struggles to stand, wobbling some on her feet. "I'm serious! You're a commander. Tell me, exactly, what you think Syrenet is. What it's supposed to do."

"Well, it's not like anyone knows because we've never gotten the chance!" he yells back. "You've been destroying all our attempts!"

"Answer the question..." her head is killing her.

Ike falters some in his step, having built another rouse of anger from Sheik's condescending question, the nerve of it all. "Syrenet is an organization adopted from British principles, put into place by President Corrin Etch to exist as a crossbreed between militaristic and espionage purposes, then it delves into providing technological services to citizens. AI Units that act like house computers, providing firearms... things like that."

She has to laugh. It's such a trained answer. "And what if I were to tell you that all of it is just a ruse?"

"I'd call you crazy."

"How'd you make that answer up?"

"I didn't make it up," Ike argues, furrowing his eyebrows together. "It is the formal statement written by President Corrin in our initiation and-"

"First problem," Sheik interrupts. "She lied to you. Your Syrenet group, while you think will be helping out the country, would only alienate us. She'd be a dictator."

The commander hangs his head, bringing a hand up to run through his hair. He laughs. "You're out of your mind. You are out of your damn mind, Sheik."

She reaches into her back pocket. From all those days ago, back in her apartment, when a package mysteriously arrives at her door are several pieces of important documentation. Sheik keeps them with her, the secrets of the world, what Corrin Etch wishes to hide from America because it'd ask all the wrong questions and bring up pieces of her past that the silverette witch does not want getting out to the public as general knowledge. The blonde has the documents with her everywhere, having made multiple copies for reasons like this, and now she gets the exact opportune moment to execute it.

"One day, I received a package, and this was in it," she holds it out for him to take. Ike looks at it with precaution. She sighs. "It's not poisoned. It's not a trick. Take it."

He accepts it gingerly, taking his hand off of the butt of his pistol. The itch to slice his throat returns, Sheik's fingertips twitching, but there's been enough bloodshed on her hands that something has to stop eventually. "What is it?"

"A birth certificate," she says. " _My_ birth certificate."

 _There are rain clouds scheduled on the forecast, Sheik clutching the phone closer to her neck. Her father, Salvatore is on the phone. It's been a long time since the two had spoken to each other, for some reason she likes alienating herself. "I want to ask you a question," she says._

 _"Anything sweetheart. What's the matter?" Salvatore asks._

 _Sheik's mouth is dry. "Are you really my father?"_

 _"I- what do you mean, Sheik?"_

 _"My name isn't Sheik, is it, Salvatore," she understands, to her father, or whomever the man is, that this must be a lance through the heart, using his first name instead of the same term of endearment she's used her entire life up until this point. "It's Samantha..."_

Ike's brow in still stuck in confusion. "I- I don't understand..."

"It's a birth certificate," Sheik says again, taking a deep breath.

Then, the hammer stroke that puts the nail in the coffin.

"My name is not Sheik Braring, commander."

"If that's not your name, then what is it?"

"It's on the certificate," Sheik shudders, then saying it because she knows Ike still won't put the pieces together.

"I'm Samantha Gladwell, the daughter of New York senator Cloud Gladwell, and the President of the United States, Corrin Etch."

* * *

 **And the plot takes another downward spiral! Man, despite all that has happened in previous chapters, I still think this one here might be the most eventful, and it certainly has brought the house down. My heart is racing, that I wrote this in about six hours, maybe a bit less, between two days, and woo, it's such a rush. Let's dissect this some, shall we?**

 **Midna is alive, in the sewers like half the damn cast, and she's heard Roy screaming. Lucas and Shulk fought, and he's effectively crushed the AI Unit's disc. Unless Operation Canary was exactly what happened, someone tried murdering Robin, which has been a twist I was waiting for. Ike found Lucas, meaning he, and now Sheik, are in Shulk's vicinity. Roy is screwed, Ganondorf has some intentions... and the one of the multiple plot twists that I've been waiting for since the very beginning with Sheik's character, and the subtle hints from there on... she's Corrin daughter, the one Corrin had with Cloud prior to the presidency, and the same child, this Samantha put up for adoption. What else is in that documentation that she mentioned? Does it spill some insight into Sheik's character at all? Is she _just_ a terrorist, or something more?**

 **This is the reason why the arc here is my favorite of the four, because it is just so explosive, I can hardly control myself. We've just reached the halfway mark, with the next chapter, Chapter #35: Ghosts of the Past, which, I shall say, prepare to have your foundations completely brought down if this chapter didn't already do it. Who's safe you think, who's on the chopping block, and can you believe that I actually wrote a chapter without Corrin in it? I'm devastated.**

 **Please review! I'd love to hear what you all are thinking, reactions and whatnot, and speculation is always great. Six chapters left, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all so much for reading! I love you all so much! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	35. Chapter 35: Ghosts of the Past

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #35: Ghosts of the Past. Another explosive chapter just passed on the horizon about a month ago, went and had a vacation, which was a great reprieve from thinking about fiction twenty/four seven. I went and had college orientation, have my classes for my first semester as a freshman in college selected, and there's been business with that. Back to the story, Robin nearly died, everyone besides her, Snake, Corrin, and Marth are in the sewers to some capacity, and Sheik is Corrin's daughter. Review replies!**

 **Mr. Squirtle6- Our conversation last night was lovely about this story. Ah, Corrin has officially fallen from grace... surprised, you've always been an adamant supporter of her. Operation Canary seemed like it, but I don't think Robin has it in her to wish death on anyone, so I'd not be afraid of that outcome. That is a very nice connection to pick up with everything, of parents and things of the like. Lucas is Shulk's child, as is his unborn child, and where he is Corrin's, Roy is going to be Ganondorf's whether he likes it or not, and of course, Sheik.**

 **Metroid-Killer- Shulk is a mixed bag. On one hand, he's not extremely complex, but at the same time... he is? He's sympathetic, I'll say. You can't help but pity him. You think the death of Robin would've been something that Sheik orchestrated? Interesting. And you think Midna will die by Ganondorf's hand? Even more interesting. Yes, Sheik was abandoned, and it is a slight bias for all this chaos, but it is not her entire line of reasoning. All will be revealed in due time.**

 **SeththeGreat- Sheik does have an ire towards Corrin, yes. Did you suspect she was the daughter? I'm curious to know that. You already know the answer about The Needle regarding Corrin. You've always known. Ganondorf has his own reasons for his things, again all will be revealed in due time. Robin and Snake, I couldn't kill the single purest person in the story. A lot of characters in a cesspool of sewage... sounds great, doesn't it?**

 **This chapter might not be as necessarily long as the others have been, it probably will be the shortest chapter for the arc, but there's some juiciness that's going to happen. Enjoy Chapter #35: Ghosts of the Past.**

* * *

This is what the good life must feel like. The one always paraded around on the television screens, where men and women on planes hold glasses of coke in their hands, smiling, tossing their heads back, and light jazz music plays on the wind. It's what every little boy and girl dreams for, to live the good life, and yet here a silverette is doing just that; she's fulfilling her wishes back in the day when her father denies her the remote and her brother denies her a single quarter. Not to say that Corrin does not already have experience living the good life, but this moment right here is truly the kingpin of them all. It is sunny in D.C, a warm and comforting eighty-five degrees if her phone does not lie. She is sitting out on a terrace overlooking Pennsylvania Boulevard, sipping mint juleps, stirring the straw around the glass. Yes, she had a martini on the flight from Detroit, but there's never enough alcohol in her blood. It's the best advice that Link Collins ever gave her, _great, a drunk politician,_ and it is her mission in life to use his words for good given the smearing shit trail Link left behind with his uncouth death. Besides, with what has transpired in the last few hours, perhaps the face of the country being drunk is going to be the easiest for them and her citizens.

She's lounging in a reclining chair, sweating underneath all of her fabrics, sweating underneath all of her gray and black, eyes covered by sunglasses so no one, should they ever intrude see the happiness reflected in the gaze swimming away from all the darkness. Being in Detroit, while the infrastructure collapses, it'd be so dreary and she does not have the time for it. The White House stands in its usual perch, gorgeous with the brand new coat of blizzard-white paint, so striking that it has its own glow, like the moon when the sun is behind it.

Yes, she knows the science behind moonlight and that the light is not truly the moon's, but she digresses and wants to pick and choose what she believes. There's never been any harm in that. It's what she's always done. When she inadvertently sends Fiora Roberts to her death, even whilst knowing about the pregnancy, it's for the greater good. She does it because she sniffs the rottenness from a mile away; Fiora is Denmark all over again, garbage falling off of porcelain skin and porcelain and there's no need for stragglers or rule-breakers in Syrenet or in her administration. Yes, it is tragic, and the president weeps over the gravestone, but only to be seen by the cameras. The disobedience of one of her best is inexcusable, a martyr, sure, but Corrin knows the truth. That Fiora wishes to rebel, and if she cannot keep her fledglings all in the nest, what's to say someone questions this on the campaign trail just a few years later.

You can have a sandcastle in your hands, but eventually it'll crumble regardless, given the composition. All Corrin has to do is start over again.

Back to her happiness, Corrin sits on her private balcony, with a waiter at her beck and call to fill up the glass should she feel lonely. She could've taken someone with her, instead of being by her lonesome, instead of being surrounded by faceless men in black suits and white ties, all nameless, all incompetent, all irrelevant. Corrin cannot picture anyone with her, however. Robin is not necessarily too fond of drinking, but she does it when the time calls for it, or when the knife nicks her barely underneath her chin like Corrin herself does back in the motel bar off the side of the road just three days ago.

Her vision clouds for a moment. Something must've happened back in Detroit. She's being told, she hears Robin on the other end of the call breathing heavily, that Operation Canary is underway. She waits, she anticipates the gun shot and she'll still mourn the loss of her best friend, the person who's been the most loyal to her - _no, Robin Wyndel has undermined you every step of the way. You know who is the most loyal. He with the hair as bright as corn -_ but... business is business. Corrin hangs on precariously, and there are indeed gunshots. Not just one, though, like she expects. Multiple. And they sound deadly. Robin's screaming, Robin's crying, Robin is yelling at someone to get away from her, and Corrin recognizes the voice on the other end.

"It's me... Robin... it's me..." Snake's voice comes shakily through the phone speaker, before the call is dropped.

Corrin wants to chuck the mint julep off the balcony. Damn him! Damn him to hell! Nothing is going the way it is supposed to be. She snorts, for a second, always expecting it. She didn't remember that Snake is going to be by her side twenty-four seven, like a hawk watching its prey, and when she's put in danger - Robin, that is - the viper will follow.

 _But that's where Snake is wrong. He thinks he's the viper, purely because of his name. He's not lethal. He's just a harmless mimicry of me. I'm the viper. Tall, ominous, poisonous, my bite is lethal, and he rattled the wrong rattler._

She can hear the soothing tones of his voice through the phone, they reverberate through her skull, again, causing her to scoff. As if Snake would've ever said those words of 'it's me...' to her, in bed, like he probably wanted to. Who wouldn't want to court the President of the United States as a companion? That's quite an honor; Snake Karlo deserves no honorary of any sorts. He should burn in hell like all the others who have gotten in her way.

Yes, while it is shocking, Operation Canary is a fail-safe. It's why she cries, thinking about it on the plane, because it means her vice president's imminent death. The guise had been established long ago. Operation Canary is the last resort to have Robin be removed from a political situation surrounded by troublesome events. It is not out of malice, but to save her, to save the canary so something else, something actually wanting to hurt her does not break the bird's neck before it tries to sing from its cage. Remove Robin from the equation as collateral, remove her so it is not some leverage her enemies can use later. It's clean. A single gunshot wound to the back of the head is being better than tortured.

It gets her out of the way, not because Corrin is afraid that the vice president will ruin anything, but so it does not affect her. It's completely selfless, yet Snake does not see that, and it's stupid. She does not have a way to do anything about it sitting here drinking juleps, however Corrin will make her move when the chess table becomes clear again. All she has to wait for is Shulk's phone call.

She looks back over at the White House from her seat. It's empty today, by executive order - hers - due to the problem happening in Detroit. Rebels or the new city-state could try to destroy the symbol and all within it. A insatiable itch sits over Corrin's skin last night, in the tub, brushing away grime and dirt, that something could very well happen in D.C. The place is cleaned out. All top secret files taken, anything not stored anywhere else, most of the computer equipment and paintings and furniture... everything placed somewhere safe in case someone wants to try and make her losses their gains, and she's not having that.

Not a single soul inside, too, just to be safe. Even if a single janitor inside gets blown up, she'll feel guilty. There's no plan like with Robin about any of that, some are just plain innocent in this war of attrition, this war that is politics. The White House is not her legacy, she understands this, it took her awhile to figure that out. When the British sacked Washington D.C back during the War of 1812, when Dolly Madison, James Madison's wife, the First Lady fled, the spirit and symbol of America went with her, and that famous portrait of George Washington. Should Corrin lose it today, which she will, the spirit does not die. She thrives on, she continues pushing forward.

What matters now is Detroit. She cannot try and end Robin now, with the fail-safe actually failing, it'd make her look desperate. She has to let matters run its course, and if Corrin loses her vice president, she can always find another one. Everyone's replaceable, unfortunately. It's a lesson that the silverette knows only too well. Father figures, lovers, secret service agents, AI Units, vice presidents...

 _Even yourself, Madam President. You're replaceable. Even more so, you're expendable. I hope that hurts you to acknowledge. I take gleeful joy in that._

Will the demons in her head ever rest? She's not quite so sure.

With Detroit on the horizon, the game has to meet a bitter end somewhere. She has yet to resort to nuclear power throughout the entire ordeal, but perhaps if she had used it such a long time ago, maybe even back in Oklahoma City, all of the turmoil that has happened wouldn't exist. Better yet, she does it when Fiora goes away on her final mission, but before Corrin sends her, then all of this would not exist. No Council of Thirteen, no deranged Shulk Roberts falling into her bed with psychosis matters that she's always known about but has never done anything for. She needs him. He's a good fighter, better communicator, he'd be useless locked in some psychiatric ward with cotton padding and straitjackets. He'd be a liability, and ultimately she'd pull the trigger; anything to propel and maintain the safety of the United States of America Corrin commits to. After all, she took an oath.

She does need to get back to Detroit soon enough, or Chicago, or a city close enough to the city-state where she's not put in danger. Shulk's phone call meaning Operation Glass Ceiling has been executed is the kill switch, and then Syrenet can sing kumbaya and have enough manpower to finally be able to kill the roaches plaguing the red, white, and blue banner. There will be casualties. Corrin expects that the winged technician - oh God, what is his name again? - and one of the commanders, perhaps Shulk, maybe Ike... they won't last the ordeal. The rest will be changed, and they might have to go away quietly forever while the silverette sits on a throne of ashes.

Actually, Corrin Etch has run a lot of things through her fingers, felt a lot of material touch her pale flesh. There's been instances with pretty much every substance on Earth, except those detrimental to her health since she's been advised not to by doctors everywhere. Doctors say to drink water, excessively, yet when she does, all Corrin gets is bloated skin and wrinkles in her forehead, the much their word of advice did. A lot has gone through her fingers, a lot has slipped right through.

Velvet, silk, the blood of a fresh kill, sand, gravel, any sort of coarse stone. There's a time, desperate and depressed, but all the evermore true, where Corrin feels her dreams slip through her fingers, where it is a phantom touch, a phantom-like kiss that barely grazes the flesh, enough to keep her warm, but it is still a miss. If she does not land on the bulls-eye of the target, it is a failure, regardless of how close. She's touched velvet, silk, blood from animals, blood from men... her dreams, even, perhaps on a dose of narcotics, but never ashes.

Never ashes.

What does that feel like? She has no idea. To sit there and have someone's life and soul, or your figurative hard work just _slip_ through flesh and fall to the ground. Corrin is determined that it is a final straw sort of method. Nothing like that will happen under her protection, most certainly not. People would have to be out of their damn mind. Perhaps she is out of her mind. She's considered that possibility.

The shadows that speak to her, the sideways glances that she thinks her staff are giving her, when actually they're of sympathy... they build and form a wonderful relationship. Paranoia does its work, and she's one to believe in that sort of thing.

Corrin reaches into the breast pocket of her jacket. There's a saying that she's thinking of now, sitting under the sun, drinking with a carefree attitude like no one's business, and not having a true care in the world. Of course, she cares, but not as much as she'd ever let on.

Something is inside, almost in the shape of a lighter, but who is she kidding, she does not smoke. That's never been in her itinerary, to smoke. She still has that dreadful, awful taste of the cigar Link gave her lingering in the back of her throat, where it mixes with the saliva of Cloud's whiskey breath while he bemoans about senatorial bills and congressional meetings. It clashes with the fieriness that is Shulk and his entire persona, a lightning storm in the clouds, clouds filled with shards of amaranthine stain-glass, with locks of blonde hair dancing in the wind like a messed up pair of Marionette dolls.

Corrin views herself to be her own sort of Marie Antionette. A guillotine is coming for her, while she indulges in cake and eats all the fineries, but if something is going to kill her, it might as well be herself, which she hopes. Corrin Etch, to herself, is her worst enemy, and her greatest asset, yet she has not figured out the way to tie everything together. A master plan out there, and currently Option B is resting in her pocket.

She slides a thumb over it, the material smooth, like the cap to a stick of lipstick. Painted black, most likely, to arouse suspicion, because if you're the president and you do not have fifty pairs of eyes looking over your way, you're doing something wrong. This could be a game changer, to push Syrenet to its maximum limits, that the rebels would dare do such a thing to the President... and she's sitting in the ashes, feeling them for the first time, laughing, laughing contently like she has never laughed before in her life.

The silverette can picture their faces. All of them. Robin, in her moments of confusion about what has transpired breaking down entirely, crystalline tears staining her cheeks. Snake's jaw locked in place, fingers desperately typing away at cell phone numbers for arrangements and missile strikes. Ike, swallowing gin, wincing, not because of the gin, but because of all the curses she knows he has yet to say to her. Roy, shaking his head, frowning to himself... their conversation on the rooftop about fakery and fakeness, it should put the puzzle pieces together slightly for some. Then, at the end there's Shulk. Not crying. Not saying a word. Pure silence. Pure... pure agony. Surely there must be a feeling of some kind to express, undoubtedly, but actually, Corrin is not so sure.

She's used him, granted, but he's had a taste of the heavens, where the streets are painted gold, and sitting in God's golden chair is her, arms outstretched, telling him how good of a job he's done, if he does this last one thing.

 _If_ she does this one last thing, then the faces will become a reality, certainly.

Corrin slides her thumb over the cylindrical object in her pocket, flicking upwards, and the cap falls off.

She takes the object out of her breast pocket in her jacket, and she stares at the foreign item in her hands. There's a single object underneath the cap, a button, blinking red, connecting, connecting, tissues that connect to organs, organs that connect to an organ system... it is now or never.

The silverette takes a deep breath. The President of the United States takes an even deeper breath. Corrin Etch takes the deepest breath she has ever taken in her life.

Down, her finger presses.

The White House across from her, in a flurry of noise, deafening to the ear, the empty mansion in all its glory, the symbol of the country and its power... it explodes in a blast, fire lacerating into the sky, incinerating the clouds.

Corrin's heart soars, and the elixir of euphoria flows through her veins.

The reflection of the explosion is in her eyes, as she drowns in the feeling.

It... she cannot describe it.

It is _beautiful._

* * *

The fifth light to the left from his head is broken, blinking haphazardly. Marth has pressed the button to call in the nurse over a thousand times at least to get someone in his hospital room to fix it, yet no one has arrived. No one answered his plea then, and no one is responding now, as he calls out weakly over the scrambling noise. Something is going on, he has the intuition to know that in the least, given his military experience and acute senses. Outside, in the city, there must be turmoil, and the hospital is evacuating all of its patients out to be airlifted.

Where? Marth has gotten not a clue.

Since Ike's visit, where the ex-commander wishes death on himself, Marth has laid in bed, been fed applesauce, and watched reruns of old sitcoms on the television screen placed in the far back of the room. When he's able to, by voice command, ask Lucina to awake herself from the slumber of being an AI Unit, since an AI Unit has a lot to do, that fills his time while he talks with her. Over the last few days, since being shot, he's had doctor after doctor explain his situation. There's a solution in sight, and the bluenette does not necessarily know if it means he's going to be put down like some sort of dog or rather be put back together, like a shattered China doll.

Something erroneous has been happening for the last hour. The hospital room shakes, some plaster falling, and he's been told by panicked nurses that he'll be moved immediately when the patients are evacuated in the order. _Evacuated from what, though?_ What has also been weird is that Lucina's functions, as his AI Unit, have been diminished. He's unable to physically speak with her, where she cannot appear in holographic form on the disc, a foot tall in stature, so he's left communicating with the open air.

Ike leaves a gift. A communicuff which has direct linking to many of Syrenet's personal cell phone numbers and Lucina's disc. The communicuff is his only way of speaking to his AI Unit now, awaiting something similar like a text message to anything he asks.

"Lucina, any progress?"

 _Negative._

"You can't reach of the any AI Units?"

 _Negative, Marth. Lucas reads offline, Lyn is turned off physically by Ike, and other communication pathways are blocked by the signal of Detroit's Needle._

Marth frowns to himself. A commander can personally turn off their AI Unit, which is what he's done plenty of times when he needs peace and quiet, but this is something different. Lucas being read as offline means that Shulk did not choose to turn the disc off normally, or something compromised the technological integrity of the device, which is unheard of.

"How about cell numbers?"

 _Ike, Corrin, Robin, Snake, Roy, Shulk, and Pit all go straight to voicemail. Mac and Midna's say that their cells are unavailable._

If this is the perfect time to leave the commander completely confused, his companions have picked an amazing opportunity to do it. From what he can hear, the world is going to shit outside and he can't get in contact with any of his friends or co-workers. That is not worrying at all.

Marth places his head back on his pillow in frustration. A nurse had just come by to say that he's the next to be evacuated, and the bluenette chalks it up to a natural disaster. A volcano sounds pretty out of the ordinary for the mainland America, and it's what he picks. Laying by himself has proven to be quite odd where his only real pastime is his thoughts. Everything he had feared about, opening to Ike, and opening up to Pit in the library, it came true when that rebel severed his spine with a bullet.

He does not want to die, not yet. His statement comes from anger, which is understandable, but also because Marth is used to looking at things through the narrowest lens he can find, no matter how detrimental that effort may actually be to him. It is not healthy, he knows. It must be soul crushing, if Marth placed himself in his best friend's shoes, to be told that someone who is practically sewn in at the hip to wish to die... how demoralizing that must be, how _awful._

The room shakes again, and Marth grips the side of the hospital bed for support. "Nurse?" he calls out again, his voice rising slightly in panic, then aloud to Lucina, "What is the structural composition and its state? How we doing? In fear of collapse?"

 _None, Mr. Lowell. Structural state is at 85%, and it lessens by not even one-third a shake. We'll be fine._

Marth looks around his room again. When he's forced to leave, the nurse will need to take Lucina with him, and the gun sitting on the counter. Via a whole lot of arguing and threatening, Corrin is able to persuade the hospital to allow Marth to have a gun in close proximity, just in case some rebels wish to be all sneaky and attack him after an attempted murder earlier. It is not the weirdest precondition he has heard, and there's been plenty.

He freezes, hearing something down the hall.

"What was that...?" he asks warily, but Lucina does not answer. The AI Unit must still be in the dark, too.

Then he hears it. A woman shouting, a nurse most likely, demanding that someone has to get out. From what it sounds like, there's two people in the lobby, and the nurse wants them to leave. There's something else, unintelligible to Marth's ears, and then gunshots. He jolts in his bed, head whirling to the pistol placed on the bedside table. The nurse screams, and then the sound falls silent... she's dead, and someone just shot her, and that means they are not friendly. The proximity is very, _very_ close to his room.

Though he cannot walk, Marth can move his body sideways and the complete dead weight that is his lower half by lifting himself off the bed and moving over with his hands. He strains, collapsing back onto the bed after moving an inch or two. Sweat breaks down his forehead, arms already starting to ache. He's out of shape, beyond out of shape. Now he can hear the sound of shoes hitting tile, footsteps, and those are the sounds of dress shoe heels. Service men, political men. Serious men, without a doubt. He hears one of them talking, low, but not low enough where he can still hear them.

"About to execute Operation Falchion, Madam President..."

 _Madam President? Operation Falchion? Corrin?_

Marth strains over again, now as close to the side of the bed as he can get. He reaches out with his left hand, luckily not hooked up to any IV on that side. The pain is unbearable with his right arm, wires and needles poking and being pulled out. The footsteps are getting closer, softer, quieter... these people must be here for his room. His fingers ghost over the butt of the pistol, and just out of his grip before the gun falls to the floor in a clatter.

"Fuck!" he swears, not caring that his mouth is extremely crude.

Another nurse further down in the building pauses from pushing away an old man on life support down the hall toward the helipad when she hears the first gunshot. It is faint, followed by the scream, but it sounds, to her, to be the A.C unit kicking back on, or another tremor from the bombs outside. Two more gunshots follow shortly thereafter, and apologizing immediately, she takes off towards the noise. She's crazy, she's defenseless, but those are _her_ patients potentially in danger.

The noise comes from Room 52A, and she skids in, before a scream breaks from her throat.

Two men are laying dead in the center of the hospital room, bullet holes in the center of their heads, copper spilling out onto the tile. Looking over in the corner, another yell hitches itself in her throat at the sight of Marth Lowell, a worker of Syrenet, crumbled in the corner between the bed and counter, laying on his back against the wall shakily, legs deadweight, holding a pistol in his hands, that are visibly trembling, the barrel smoking.

He takes a deep breath, swallowing. "You want to help me get out of here, beautiful?"

The gun clatters to the floor, Marth resting a hand over his heart.

"Let's not do this again..." he says.

 _Agreed._

He smirks at Lucina's response, before frowning.

Someone just tried to kill an incapacitated, now paraplegic ex-commander of Syrenet, and by the way their dressed, in fine suits and ties and their earpieces... they aren't rebels. Are they Secret Service? And why did they say... 'Madam President'?

If Corrin is not the one to ask for a hit on his life, who would it be?

* * *

 _The banter fills the dining room comfortably, the glow of lit candles illuminating shadows onto the wall where kids make shadow puppet movements with their hands. Shulk smiles to himself, seeing a toddler stand up on the booth to the protest of his parents, playing with his shadow. Soon enough, that feeling of adorableness will be his. Eventually, one day, he's one lucky man. One last trimester and then there'll be a squalling, red-faced life form in his hands that he can claim as his child, with his wife smiling at him from her hospital bed... his heart fills with joy. There's so much on the horizon for them._

 _He spots her from the hostess stand, shimmying with the expert movement of a line dancer through the chairs, muttering apologies and 'excuse me' past tables and waiters before standing firm at his dinner table. She is already sitting down, a glass of water on its dainty coaster, a white sheet thrown over the table, a tall vase of roses placed in the corner next to the salt and pepper shakers. Likewise, similar to all the others, a candle rests in the center between them, but it'll take more than that to break the feeling of love between he and her._

 _His wife, Fiora, smiles up at him, and she stands up, throwing her arms around her husband in a warm vice. It's been four days since they last saw each other, on business matters, strictly business matters, and now she's here and they're having a dinner, all expenses paid by the restaurant... it's a miniature sliver of paradise on a silver platter. He kisses her when they break from the embrace, holding her by the shoulders._

 _"You look lovely tonight, Fiora," he says._

 _"This old thing?" she smiles abashedly, gesturing to the backless and body tight fuchsia dress accentuating her curves. "I just pulled something random out of the closet," a warm kindling emanating from her eyes. "You look great too, Shulk. You always do."_

 _He presses a hand to her extended belly, the feeling of life spreading throughout his palm and to the tips of his fingers. "How's the baby?"_

 _"Kicking, alive and well," Fiora answers, looking down. Her bump is rotund now, with there not being all too long now. It'll be the changing of a season, their child here before they'll even know it._

 _"I sometimes can't believe we'll be parents..." he says, almost wistfully._

 _She raises an eyebrow, patting him on the shoulder. "Settle down there. Let's get to the birthing stage first, then being parents after that."_

 _Although her chair is already pulled out, Shulk goes over to it and extends it further enough so she can sit back down while he scoots her in, giving another peck on the back of the neck because he can. He takes his seat, scooting back up to the table so he can hold hands with her even over the open flame. He'll dare to do it, he's not scared of it or anything. The blonde unfurls the rolled up silverware, placing the cloth in his lap while orderly lining up the silverware in the same manner he does every time. The fork and knife is closest to his right hand in case he needs to use it for defense purposes, and the spoon closest to the spices so he can dish himself out the right amount if his food order amounts to needing more salt or pepper._

 _"I was surprised to get your call," Shulk opens the conversation, straightening the napkin in his lap._

 _"I figured a dinner date was long overdue," Fiora's hair is long and down tonight, like the extensions of a sunray's reach or the pouring of a fresh glass of lemonade. "When was the last time we had a real meal together? When's the last time we didn't eat by ourselves, didn't eat fast food, or two-week old leftovers?"_

 _"I thought your meeting with the president was supposed to take longer. You called me around five, when I thought you weren't supposed to be done with business until seven."_

 _Fiora locks her jaw for a second, so fast a normal human wouldn't catch it, but he does. He sees everything his wife does, and she sees everything her husband does. They do not share secrets from each other. It is an agreement to one another when they first meet, let alone before they exchange vows surrounded by pale silk. "We finished early. Corrin didn't have much to discuss."_

 _Shulk frowns, sitting back up against his chair, which creaks under duress. Part of it is due to her strange behavior a brief moment ago, but the other is that he's trying to catch her in the light of the candle, to illuminate her in just the upmost perfect way. He takes up drawing specifically for her, and there are way too many self-portraits in their house of her, but that's because it's all Shulk seems to be able to draw. She notices this, the way his eyes get a bit smaller, since he's focusing._

 _"What are you doing?"_

 _"Looking at you in the light..."_

 _"People will stare," she whispers._

 _"Let them," he shrugs. "I don't care. I wish I had my camera so I could take a picture and draw this later. You look incredible."_

 _Fiora blushes. Their relationship is so sweet, it would definitely kill a diabetic, but sometimes even his flattery is too much, no matter how much Shulk says it is all deserved. He tilts his head to the left, eyes widening like he's tasted a morsel of Pandora's box... and... there. With his head at what he garners to be a forty three degree angle, the way the candlelight flickers under her chin, bringing the glow up to her eyes, accentuated by the swathe lines of eyeshadow and application of blush, and with the strands of her breaking past the shoulder, there she is. His own, personal Mona Lisa, one that is way better, one that makes Leonardo Da Vinci weep into his pillow cover at night._

 _Before he forgets, Shulk pulls his phone out of his pocket. He hesitates, thinking about taking a picture of Fiora with the phone camera, but it is not the same quality in any respectful means the way it'd be with something fanciful; he needs the best of the best for his fair lady in order to capture her flawless essence perfectly. The phone rests the side of the table, close enough to fall to the floor if he's not careful, but careful is Shulk Roberts' middle name. It is there for business purposes only, should the president or vice president demand their help or opinion or anything of the sort._

 _Her eyes flit to it briefly, darkening some. She swallows, tucking her head in closer to her chest. "You've seen the news, I'd take it?"_

 _"You'd have to be a hermit not to," Shulk answers, rubbing his chin. "Detroit?" There's a glass of water next to his left elbow, which she must've ordered. The two have taken personal vow off of alcohol given their almost there newborn, since it is unfair for him to drink and tempt Fiora which could be damaging for the baby. Thank god neither one of them smoke. He takes a sip, the beginning bit of the black straw vanishing behind a curtain of white teeth._

 _Fiora stirs the cubes in her glass, placing a hand underneath her head, eyes slightly glazed over. Shulk frowns again, scratching his arm. What's up with her? She's never been this... this demure about anything. "Yeah, Detroit..."_

 _Shulk sits upright somewhat, crossing his hands together. A comforting movement, it's what he does when he's troubled. "Has Corrin made any developments on what we're going to do? Diplomatic force? Militaristic force?"_

 _His wife gives a grimace, going to sip her water. Where's their waiter? "She wants to drop a bomb. Nukes, most likely, by her vehement word choice. However, we can't do that..." her lips release from the straw, Shulk watching her swallow. A heavy swallow. Why is that? "The municipality of Detroit itself... there's three fourths of a million people there. Then, the metropolitan area makes it the second most populated city in the Midwest."_

 _"How many people there?" Shulk asks._

 _"2.8 million."_

 _"Shit..." the commander of Alpha Squad whistles. "That's-"_

 _"A lot of people," Fiora finishes for him. "You can't just drop nuclear bombs or any sort of firepower like that on nearly four million people. The ramifications of that amount of loss of life alone is- I can't even begin to imagine it. Then, not to mention, they're all U.S citizens. Legality of it, alongside the moralistic views... we can't use hard militaristic action, at least not the way Corrin wants too..."_

 _"Do we have a different solution, then? It won't be fixed by itself," he comments. "Either we do something, or Detroit secedes away from the Union as a city-state and they become a country smack dab on the border of Canada. Talk about screwing worldwide politics..." Shulk scowls into his ice water._

 _"We do have a solution..." she responds to him, her hands running down the length of her arms, during which Fiora sits back away from her seat, her voice tapering off. Shulk sits up, noticing the tonal shift. A complete cloud of darkness has passed over his wife's face, an emotion he's seen only once before and that had been with the death of her younger brother to cancer._

 _"Honey?" he asks. "What's wrong?"_

 _She looks away for a moment, not saying anything. "Shulk, I-" but she can't bring herself to finish the statement,_

 _Shulk shifts some, grabbing his wife's hand, pressing hard, squeezing. "You can tell me, whatever it is. Please, Fiora, you're worrying me..."_

 _Fiora swallows, again with heavy movement, before closing her eyes, not opening them until her next sentence is over. "Corrin's plan is Syrenet. Specifically, me."_

 _If there is supposed to be a gravitas moment, he misses it. Shulk raises an eyebrow, not following. "I don't think I understand. What do you mean?"_

 _She takes a shaky breath. "I'm being sent to Detroit to stop their rebellion."_

 _Whatever thought processes are going through Shulk's head come to an immediate, grinding halt. He has one hand around the base of his ice water glass, and by the force of his squeeze, it'll shatter sooner than later under the pure brutishness that is his grip. He must've misheard her. There's no way Corrin Etch, the President of the United States, with all her advisors, with all of her expertise, with the smartness inside her... is considering sending his wife, his pregnant wife... to Detroit. To stop an entire city, now by Fiora's answer, a population of near four million people from breaking off the Union's boundaries. One woman, a single man army, against four million. He needs to pinch himself. He must be dreaming. This sounds insane. It IS insane, more likely._

 _He stutters a nervous laugh. "I'm sorry... what? Say that again, Fiora. You're going to Detroit? Corrin is sending you to Detroit as the response for this mess?"_

 _Fiora has brought her hands to her mouth, to bite down on her fingernails, but she hesitates, every swallow as if she's enduring a mountain passing down her throat. "I wish I was joking, I-"_

 _"Did you happen to mention that you're... oh, I don't know, six months fucking pregnant!" Shulk demands, raising his voice a bit._

 _"Of course I did," she snaps back. "What do I look like to you? A wench? Of course I said that. I mentioned how I'm in the last trimester..."_

 _"And even with all of that-"_

 _"She's demanding I go."_

 _Shulk sits back, tapping his fingers against the table. His perfect view is gone, her hair blowing by some invisible wind, a sour taste building in his mouth. No, something's wrong. Names had to have been pulled out of a hat or something, there's- there's no way... he scoffs. This is supposed to be their night, away from Syrenet, away from the silver viper, away from all the problems the outside world has been putting on their shoulders, but no matter how far he runs it comes back to him. "Why didn't you refuse? Why didn't you hold your ground?"_

 _"I tried," Fiora protests. "Corrin was adamant, Shulk! Besides, what was I supposed to do then if I disobeyed her? You know what's in our contract! She'd conscript us, she'd send me there whether I agreed or disagreed. I'm trapped in this; I have to go."_

 _"I have to go with you, then," he argues._

 _"You can't. She says you're not allowed to-"_

 _"I have to get permission from Corrin while my pregnant wife is going to be in a war-zone? Oh, I don't fucking think so!" Shulk exclaims, pounding a fist on the table._

 _Fiora closes her eyes. They're making a scene. She can sense the eyes bearing into her back, the hushed whispers, and how it makes her skin crawl. "You have your own missions to worry about. She needs you in Mexico, honey."_

 _"Drug cartels and human trafficking can wait. This is more important!"_

 _"I'm not saying it isn't, but you can't. She'll force you to stay home, violently if she has to. I'm going alone," she says, almost with resolve, as if she's writing away her own demise._

 _"Why can't any other squads go? Why only Alpha?"_

 _"If she takes out the squads that are resting from their injuries or last mission, it's a breach of contract," Fiora answers at length, fiddling with her hands, unsure of where to place them. "If we take out any team currently doing work, New Zealand's Prime Minister is assassinated, someone blows up half the continent of Australia, the oil reserves in Saudi Arabia fall into terrorist hands, and the most dangerous Mexican drug cartel in the country's history suddenly rules Mexico," she argues._

 _A feeling like being stabbed places itself in the middle of Shulk's chest, right between his pecs. He glares at his wife, an expression he can count on one hand the number of times he's ever done. "Do not guilt trip me into performing my mission."_

 _"You took an oath to your country, as did I!"_

 _"I'm going to think that the stupid Syrenet oath is going to be trumped over by my wife's paramount safety, Fiora!"_

 _She raises a hand, before falling into it with her forehead, closing her eyes, taking a deep breath. "I'm not trying to argue with you, Shulk. I'm just letting you know that this is what's going on. It's why I wanted to have dinner tonight, so I could tell you."_

 _"You ruined the evening," he spits at her bitterly._

 _"That wasn't my intention."_

 _He sits back again, taking another sip, exchanging glances across the restaurant. They've still not been received by a waiter. That's odd, too odd for his liking. "Please tell me you're not going alone. If you are, I'm marching right down to Corrin's office, and I swear to everything I'm putting my fist through her throat."_

 _Fiora places her palms on the table, and he sees that she's starting to sweat. "I can't go with everything. She's letting me borrow the Monado sword, and I get a team of fifteen guys with me. Syrenet suit, and customizable AI Unit..."_

 _Shulk closes his eyes, chewing on the inside of his cheek. It isn't enough to him, but sometimes wise men do not make demands of kings, or queens for that matter. It is still better than nothing. Even by herself, and even pregnant, Fiora is an adept fighter, better than him, he'll admit. She has not been in many physically demanding missions since her announcement of being with child, but her marksmanship is by far the best in Syrenet. She'll be fine, he has to tell himself, to even be able to keep the nerves at bay._

 _He hates this._

 _The commander of Alpha Squad runs a hand over his face. "I don't like it, Fiora, I really don't."_

 _"I don't either."_

 _"What exactly is your mission? How are you doing whatever it is Corrin is making you do?"_

 _Fiora takes a deep breath, her shoulders rising and falling. "I have three missions, wrapped up in one. I have to dismantle the entire rebellion itself, try and bring it to a standstill or destroy it entirely. All thirteen members on Detroit's self created council have to be eliminated, executed in any way I see fit, and I have to turn something they've built called The Needle to our advantage."_

 _"The Needle?" Shulk raises an eyebrow._

 _"Some sort of telecommunications tower that the city built a few months ago. Apparently... it does... something, and I need to try and reverse it."_

 _"So, you're doing a covert mission?"_

 _She nods, gamely. "I'm sorry, Shulk, but... my hands are tied."_

 _"You could still say no, Fiora."_

 _She makes a sad noise in her throat, eyes going downcast towards her glass of water. Fiora presses her lips together in a thin line. "You know that's not truly possible."_

 _He leans back in his chair once more, placing a knuckle in the space between his lips and his nose. "When- when's your flight?"_

 _"10:00 PM..." she says, after a stasis of silence, where the candle cracks, and Shulk's heart falls._

 _"That's not even three and a half hours away, Fiora. We weren't even going to eat, were we?" by the look she gives him, Shulk is going to pummel something into the window they're sitting at. He laughs bitterly. "Whenever we think we're out of Syrenet's crosshairs, we're sniped again. Dammit..."_

 _Fiora checks her phone in her pocket, making a face that he's unable to read. "It's getting late, Shulk. I- I need to get ready for my flight..." she stands up, and he does too likewise._

 _Before she has the chance to do anything, he has her arms wrapped around her. They must hug for three or four minutes, his face against her shoulder, breathing in the lavender aroma of her hair, hands resting on the small of her back, fingers plaiting at the spine, the swell of her stomach distending his some, as he whispers pretty nothings into her ear. Sometimes, he can't even believe she's real. Sometimes, he can't even believe she's his, with the way things go on between them. When his wife returns from this mission, knocking Detroit down nine pegs or so, safe and sound, he'll be a father, and then she can be his forevermore, away from Syrenet and its branch-like claws, from the emerald-eyed stare demon in the dark, who hisses like a snake, who has the sweetness of a toddler and the killing abilities like Jack the Ripper._

 _He places a kiss against the side of her temple. "I love you, Fiora. I love you more than anything in this world."_

 _When she looks at him, there's tears in her eyes. She never cries. She's never cried for something as municipal as a goodbye. "I love you too, Shulk."_

 _Then, she briskly walks off, his gaze following her, the pride of seeing the swell of her stomach, the bitterness that there is no dinner plans, and the fact his wife is out of his grasp again when he had just had her._

 _Even now, with years of thinking, Shulk Roberts never imagines that this is the last time, that the last words he truly does say are 'I love you' before she's taken from him and she dies._

 _His ghosts of the past are coming back to haunt him._

* * *

 _DRIP, DRIP_

It is silent in Ganondorf's underground sewer chamber, the shaking having ceased, no more booming noises echoing around the walls. It is silent, save for the occasional _drip-drip_ that is the noise of blood droplets landing onto the ground, the ruby red wake coming from Roy's shredded pinkie finger on his right hand. He looks at it emptily, no emotion in his gaze, as he watches the blood from his finger glide unceremoniously. The pinkness of his flesh is split down the middle, embedded about an inch deep is a wire running through his pinkie to the knuckle, the flesh wound still hurting some, his screams long abandoned to the pipes.

Ganondorf sits back, admiring his work. As he cuts away and tears away, and while Roy pleads for him to stop, the agony being unbearable, there'll be wires through every finger, to each knuckle, then in his chest, down his spinal cord to his feet, and embedded into his brain, while the color leaves the redhead's face. This is not what he signed up for, and he should have never thought to take the cyborg alone. What is he thinking? Roy hopes he does not die doubting himself, in this dark prison cell. It'd be an awful way to go. He's being tortured clearly, not just by having bits and pieces inserted into his body, but at the speed it is done to him. The cyborg is above him, straddling him in the most uncomfortable position ever, digging in with blades and scissors, taking his precious time, just to gloat. To call Roy his creation, his influence, his inspiration, his niche, his muse... on and on he goes, while all Roy sees is the blinding white of agony.

"You already look much better than you did before..." Ganondorf admires his first step. "One single wire, but now you're already being connected to the Syrenet mainframe..."

"Burn- burn in hell..." Roy says weakly, struggling again, with whatever the metal holding him in the chair had been.

The councilor quirks an eyebrow. "You and your whispers... sometimes I forget you're even here," Ganondorf turns back around to the array of tools, and he picks up the next wire. "You're doing remarkably better than Fiora. She fainted with the first incision, and came in and out of consciousness. You're still awake. In pain, but awake..." When he turns around, placed in his hands is a spool of wire, but not like those for electrical outlets, more so copper wire. Roy's eyes widen. "This is for your spinal cord, helps conduct electricity and keeps the nodes alive and functioning all the time. Sensory overload." If that goes in his spine, Roy's dead, flat out certain. "However," Ganondorf says, and for a brief solace of thirty seconds, he's relieved, "Since your body is recovering from my first insertion of cyber technology and wires, I can't just go drilling into your spinal cord. I have to wait for a recursive period."

This dynamic the two have, Roy's never seen anything like it. Ganondorf is evil, no doubt in his mind, and especially twisted, like a modern-day Frankenstein, but yet he talks and laughs and giggles and chortles, and maybe there's a loose screw somewhere. What is he supposed to say? Thank you? "I think you're insane..." the Syrenet worker moans weakly, shifting around in his bondage some more, still unable to get loose. None of his exertions while being in pain did anything, where actually the metallic bindings got tighter, constricting airflow and bulking the veins to the surface so he bled more.

Ganondorf smirks to himself. "Insane, Mr. Arcadia? No, I'm not insane. I like to call myself a visionary," he crosses his arms. "You know who's insane, don't you?"

Roy frowns. Is this monster of a half-human really trying to have a conversation with him when he's about to be mutilated? It seems like a serious case of bad-guy syndrome. He raises an eyebrow, and because, maybe, if he keeps the councilor talking, it'll prolong the inevitable just in case someone somehow saves him and Shulk completes his mission at the Needle. Keep the villain talking; Roy's always been a good talker. "No..."

"Your president, Corrin, is. She's insane," the cyborg answers. He sneers. "I hate her with every fiber of my being."

"You're not the only one to."

"I hate her for a whole different reason though, Mr. Arcadia," Ganondorf runs the spool of copper wire over his fingertips, olive green skin colliding with the flair of red, a stunning red, a blood-red. Roy's hair, Midna's hair, Fiora's blood clinging to the wire... and a burning anger inside the Syrenet worker's stomach. "She pretends I don't exist. Do you know what she did when we met? Before I murdered the council and everything?" Roy cannot understand the angle that Ganondorf is striving for here, but he frowns at the mention that the two had met before. When would they have met? "Your valiant bitch of a president looked me in the eyes and said she didn't recognize me. I knew she was a politician, but not a liar to her own goals, either."

"What are you talking about?"

"She's the reason I exist, Mr. Arcadia."

Everything comes to a screeching halt in Roy's mind. None of this is making sense. Wait- wait a minute. What? Out of the blue comes this cyborg freak meshed with technology, killing the other political leaders, and there's supposed to be a bridging connection between all this? His mouth goes dry at the notion of what he's about to say. "You're half-human, half-machine. That would mean there was a human testing component to the Syrenet program and-"

"I was the first volunteer," he replies smugly, walking up to Roy's chair. He grips the other redhead by the jaw, forcing him to look into his eyes. Roy groans in pain at his right hand being flung around, and he tightens against the restraints. "I volunteered for human testing and she observed me get poked, prodded, torn apart, and turned into this... like I'm doing for you. However, she decides to stop it all together and the project is only half-done. She tosses me here to Detroit and forgets about me. We met, and she simply _forgot!"_ Ganondorf tightens the pressure on Roy's jaw, so much that his ears pop, and he hisses through clenched teeth. "Since she isn't here for me to bestow my gift, you're gonna be her fall guy!"

He's got to be lying. There's no way what Ganondorf is saying to be true at all. That's impossible. It means cover-ups, scandals... things that Roy would've never imagined or dreamed. "You're lying!" he yells back in the cyborg's face, mustering as much strength as he can through the pain. He is intimidated by Ganondorf, but underneath the chrome, metal plating, is someone who never got their way, and is making Syrenet's losses, his gains.

Ganondorf releases Roy, giving a shout of anger, pacing the room. "Lying? _Lying?_ You accuse me of lying, Mr. Arcadia? I was the beginning of her empire and she discarded me like trash!"

"Corrin may not be the best, but she certainly wouldn't associate herself with you?"

The cyborg pinches the bridge of his nose, resting down on the work bench, holding the pair of scissors, the metal stained a putrid crimson with the blood of Roy's hands. He chuckles lowly to himself - Ganondorf does, a chuckle that is from the darkest abyss, the deepest trench - while moving the scissors back and forth. "I want to send these into your skull _so_ badly right now, but I can't do that." Roy's heartbeat begins to quicken. Perhaps engaging with the enemy in a discourse that is hostile is not the best plan of action. Ganondorf tilts his head to the left, like a cat's. He tries another angle. "You know what Shulk is doing right now? What the Needle truly stands for?"

Roy has an idea. Not a good one, but an idea, since the blonde's orders weren't exactly foolproof or fully explained. "Enough to beat both you and the rebels."

Ganondorf spins the scissors around his pointer finger on his left hand through the larger of the two hoops. He tilts a head upwards. "The Needle, since I was here when it was constructed, is a telecommunications resource. It can spy on anyone in the world, connect with any satellite in outer space, and much more than that. Why would Corrin want to use something like that, with Operation Glass Ceiling? What would it gain her?"

The other redhead tries blocking his words out. All Ganondorf is trying to do is instill seeds of doubt in Roy, to turn him against his friends, his co-workers, his boss, and family... and all he has to do is not faint or die by technological surgery, kick Ganondorf's ass, beat back the rebels, and he'll be fine. However, something tickles at the back of his mind. Something Corrin had said to him, while they were camped out on the rooftop, but he couldn't remember what it had been; his memory fails him at the worst times. Roy bites down on the inside of his cheek, deciding to humor Ganondorf. "It'd make Corrin see anything and everything. She'd rule not just the country, but the world, wouldn't she?"

"She would," the cyborg nods. "Would you be surprised in knowing that when Fiora had come here, back when things were full blown to shit, her mission was to activate the Needle?"

"And you stopped her?" The rest goes unsaid, but Roy thinks it in his head. _Killed her, mutilated her, murdered her unborn baby, left Shulk wifeless, childless, soulless... you'll burn in hell, you bastard._

"I did," Ganondorf admits. "Partially because of my own desire, and because I was ordered to. By President Corrin herself."

The air in Roy's throat seizes up, and he coughs, choking on his spit. "You're lying..." he hisses out, once more.

A small cooing noise comes from the other man's throat, as he dances with the scissors in his hands. "Am I though?" He advances back up to Roy, scissors in hand, and the Syrenet employee starts to tremble on instinct. "Your gears are turning, trying to figure out if I'm telling the truth. But it's pointless, because you know I'm right..."

If any word that Ganondorf is saying is true, then that means Corrin has orchestrated herself a dynasty... that Fiora learns about the Needle and its power, confronts the president, she's sent to stop a rebellion, killed, and now the chance happens all over again. Roy doesn't want to believe it, but it's the way Ganondorf says it, where there's no real sense of a silver tongue or persuasion. Just talking, hard, cold, facts and truth.

Roy shakes his head. "Corrin would never- Shulk is-"

"Fiora was eliminated because she got in the way," Ganondorf lifts his head triumphantly, smiling. "She reached out to me to help her do it, but I don't think she expected me to take it as far as I did, killing the child and all, but there is to be no loose ends after all. It was simple. Murder Fiora, and Corrin acts like it was an act of war, a scapegoat used for Congressional power, which she's yet to execute..." he places a hand on Roy's shoulder. "However, when I did what I was supposed to, she left me again. Left me here, to rule this stupid country, and she doesn't extend me gratitude..."

"You sound unbelievably childish..."

"SHE ABANDONED ME!" Ganondorf roars, and in his fit of rage, punches Roy square across the jaw. The redhead goes sprawling backwards, spitting blood from his mouth. God, that guy can slug a hit. The chair with its strange metallic ropes pushes itself back to a square position, the cyborg resuming his pacing. "That bitch left me here to rot! She came back, and I decided I wasn't going to be hers anymore. When I'm done creating you, I'm going to go and remove Shulk's head from his body, as you watch your friends die! I'm going to kill her, destroy her, as she watches what could've been a legacy make it all go down in flames. You're going to help me do it, Roy, you're going to help me do it..."

None of this makes any sense. Roy doesn't- Roy doesn't believe- _fuck,_ Roy believes him, somewhat, half-heartedly, deep down... he believes him. He doesn't know why, yet, but he has to make face about it, about it all. He's been left in the dark on most of what has been happening with Syrenet, since all he does at face value is listen to orders, shoot weapons, and hope for the best, but all of this is changing the game around. That means, if Ganondorf is remotely even telling the truth, Corrin has been lying to everyone. Not just Robin. Not just Snake, or Shulk, or to himself. She's been lying to the American people, which is pretty damn inexcusable.

"You're lying," he spits, copper following his spray. "About the Needle. About Corrin. About Fiora, about Shulk... you're lying about all of it. I know you are. There's no way... you're just pissed that she left you here, when I know you weren't created by her in the first place."

"What would I gain from lying to you?" Ganondorf tilts his head. "I've told you all of this because I felt like it. I murdered the Council of Thirteen just like how your precious little president wanted Fiora Roberts... to get them out of the way. Sooner or later, to do what I want to do against the Etch administration, they'd need to die as is. I can say for certain Fiora is in the same boat, Mr. Arcadia."

"You're lying because you want to-"

"I want to, what?" Roy doesn't say it. It's a foolish idea, the moment he even thinks of it, but it's got to be the truth. Better than the lies being spewed, one hundred and fifty percent. "Say it, Mr. Arcadia, or I'll slice into something that isn't your hands or legs..."

"You want to turn me against them... my family..." Roy whispers.

Ganondorf laughs. "You don't need my help to do that. Corrin's _been_ doing it, long before you ever arrived, Mr. Arcadia..."

"I still don't believe you."

Ganondorf gives Roy a ghastly smile, a smile that chills the other redhead to the core. "I know you believe me. Deep down, deep down in there, you know I'm right. Corrin murdered the wife of the lead commander because she tried stopping her, and here she is again, about to achieve an-all consuming power, and none of you believe me..." he makes a clucking noise with his tongue. "Shame, Mr. Arcadia. I thought you were smarter than all that. Forgive me, then, for what I am about to do-"

Roy does not get a chance to ask what that means before Ganondorf launches forward, scissors in hand, diving them straight into his right bicep. He howls in pain, scarlet spewing everywhere. In the flash of pain, something glimmers, the gemstone maybe, then a sheet of whiteness, the agony becoming unbearable.

Then, with the snap of someone's fingers, his world turns to black.

* * *

 **Let's say, first and foremost, that this was a hard chapter to write, especially this ending, and I don't think I executed it very well, to be perfectly honest, but I've been at the bit for quite some time with it. This was Chapter #35: Ghosts of the Past, for Syrenet, ladies and gentlemen... and here we are at the breach of 300000 words for this story, oh my god. 300000 words is an unbelievable number, where this story is twice as long as my original longest piece of 141k+ and I'm sitting here close to tears, I mean it. There's a lot to discuss, but it's mostly just what Ganondorf has told Roy at the end with this section, one of the three plot twists left in this story. The official half-way mark of the last arc is here, and there's only so much more downhill we can go before rock bottom.**

 **With Ganondorf's explanation of events, it would mean that Corrin founded a human experimentation group, with Ganondorf being the first and only test subject actually operated on and she sweeps it under the rug. The Needle is built, she wants to use it for her own good, Fiora finds out, she's send to stop the rebellion in Detroit from happening, Corrin gives special instructions to Ganondorf to kill Fiora to get any opposition out of the way, and Shulk's wife is brutally murdered. Fast forward three years later, Syrenet is backed into a corner by the rebels, and this is Corrin's last straw, use Shulk to get the powers of the Needle, but for more than what meets the eye. My question to you, is, and think hard about this answer with as much context and content from thirty-four chapters of material...**

 **Is Ganondorf lying, or is he telling the truth? What would that realistically mean, in the end, then? Do you believe or not believe him, and why? Ganondorf has nothing to lose, if you think about it, by telling Roy, if he's going to turn Roy into a cyborg who follows his orders, as is. The rest of the chapter is important clearly, with Corrin blowing up the White House and all, but this is the nail in the coffin.**

 **Who's the ghost of the past? It's a lot to handle, I know, trust me, trying to keep it all straight has been difficult. Any takers... but I digress for too long now. I am very happy to have gotten to this point with the story, this chapter has been exhausting to do, written in four hours, and a bit over it to spare. We're in the final stretch now, with Chapter #36: Hurricane of Detroit. Please review, I'd love all of the crackpot and everything. Thanks for reading! I hope to see you all again very soon! You guys are the best! Love you all! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	36. Chapter 36: Hurricane of Detroit

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #36: Hurricane of Detroit. It has been** ** _way_** **too long since I've posted for this story, but that's because there has been a shit ton of stuff going on in my life such as my freshman year of college starting, and as well as getting a job, in which I really enjoy working, so alas, writing has been pushed to the side, and I have the time and the motivation to do so. Review replies!**

 **CrashGuy01- You're the only reviewer this time around, unfortunately. But, thank you for the compliments. I'm now taking a Creative Writing class with my college schedule and I think it is going to help me tremendously in ways that I won't be able to fathom, so let's get to it! Now, do you** ** _really_** **believe what Ganondorf said? If that's the case, then Corrin is our true antagonist, pretending to be a protagonist under everyone's noses, including the readers. Either way, the circle is getting tighter.**

 **This is probably going to be one of the shorter sized chapters for this arc, but we're in the final five chapters ladies and gentlemen. The clock is winding down. The end - I want to cry thinking about it - is nigh and upon us shortly. Enjoy Chapter #36: Hurricane of Detroit.**

* * *

Occasional tremors continue to shake the ground every now and then when Robin and Snake make their way back to the compound. It is stark in the silence of the Detroit battleground. It stands impervious and tall - tall is perhaps too gratuitous of an adjective, Snake realizes, pushing open the front door - against the other buildings, the section left untouched so far by the warfare happening all around. It is somewhat hard to believe that there are not any mortars that have not gone off, but if the attack is a planned venture, knowing that Syrenet had been in Detroit the whole time, perhaps there is no knowledge on any building in the city being theirs. It is not exactly cost efficient to blow every single building up trying to root out all the rats.

The windows are dark, completely, and the communications were unresponsive, Snake's heart lumping into his throat when his ninth try goes dead within seconds. That can only mean one thing. He's expecting it to be abandoned, or rather, empty, but it is still a shock when no one responds to his calls.

"Pit? Ike?" he shouts, pushing open the locked front door, Robin clinging to his side. "Roy? Shulk?" Nothing. Absolutely nothing except dead air, air particles left by themselves to heat the compound up.

Robin's eyes widen in fear. "No one's here..."

"You don't know that," he says back, trying to assure her. "They may all be sleeping."

"Sleeping?" the look she gives him back may be the sharpest glare Robin Wyndel has ever given _anyone_ , and whatever warmness she had felt earlier must've dissipated in seconds. "Snake. This is not the time."

He leaves her standing in the living room, practically dead center and away from all the windows. There's no one there, like he expects, like he figures, because nothing today is going easy for him. There's only one possible scenario and that is an idea he does not want to confront. Ike, Pit, Shulk, Roy, and by extension, Lucas, are out there in the city somewhere, in the world of smoke, sulfur, and destruction. He passes by a window, daring to look outside it. After rescuing Robin, her screams still fresh in his ears, the sound of his pistol firing constantly echoing in his skull, the two never look back as he drives away. When he watches the men take her, take _his_ vice president, take _his_ best friend, Snake panics. He's never panicked in his life. He's always tackled everything with a level head, a head screwed on tight and nothing will move it... but when she's nabbed off the street in the middle of warzone by men he does not recognize, regardless of how they're dressed, his heart starts racing and his mind begins running to places unknown.

Just moments earlier, before her scream hits his ears, he witnesses Midna's flash of scarlet hair vanish beneath a solid layer of black asphalt, mortar, tar, flesh, and blood. She could be dead too, and he's not even had the time to process it. It hits him then, right there, standing in the empty hallway that Midna, his closest partner, his soon to be successor, may very easily have lost her life right after the last time he saw her.

Snake is a whirlwind of emotions, killing several rebel soldiers who dare go after the FBI director, recognizing his face from TV or somewhere - or perhaps they're just on the war path, culling over whomever they come across, the poor souls - before he jumps into some white van he sees, down a street or so where there's hardly any fighters, just Detroit police running towards the battleground. His head is killing him, after a mortar explosion knocks him off of his feet, colliding into solid stone. He has no idea where he's going, where the car has taken her, has taken _his_ Robin. He remembers the van, however, the black van that took her, seeing the license plate, and that's where he starts... until he gets to it, this shed and building on the outskirts of nowhere in the city, overlooking the destruction, and far to the left of it, northeast, is the impervious Needle of Detroit, still standing tall, gleaming in the sunlit, smoke covered sky.

It's her scream that he hears when he parks the car, gun ready. There's one thing Robin's terrified voice would mean, and that is that she's in trouble. No one is going to lay a hand on her.

He does not flinch when he kills the six men inside the room, and his heart does not stop beating until she's safely in his arms, his hands encircling her back, her hands through his hair, as he whispers comforts to her. " _You're okay,"_ he whispers. " _You're okay. You're safe. It's me. It's just me_." Whomever those men were... if they _were_ secret service agents... even thinking about it causes his blood to chill, hair to stand on end. Only three people could order secret service agents to perform an action like the one that'd be an organized rescue of a governmental official like that. Corrin, Robin, and himself. He didn't give the order, clearly, and neither would Robin as she's the one put in danger. Who would want Robin dead and have the ability and power to put into authorization of such an action?

Only Corrin herself.

Again, an idea so perilous, Snake chooses to not consider the path at all.

He rejoins her back in the living room, Robin sitting down on one of the couches, staring straight ahead, but not emotionless. There are many emotions reflecting in her diamond gaze, it's just he cannot read them anymore, after what she's been through. The vice president is not a fighter in that sense, nor, does he reckon, has she seen much blood or warfare, despite her position, it just isn't her nature. He's been through a lot, but to even fathom the notion of losing her, it is something he has not been through.

"They're not here," he says, but it's a statement that goes unsaid regardless.

"Which means they're out there," her voice is cold. "With all of those monsters."

"It's not safe here. We can't stay here in Detroit, Robin. Not while that force remains." Snake's tone is solid, like he's commanding her, but he's unsure as to why he has to be so firm. She knows just as much as he does what's going on, what the situation is, and all of that. While she is no fighter, she is not incompetent. What she lacks in self-defense - something Snake is going to righteously fix now, given the circumstances - she makes up for wit, integrity, and having a knowledgeable, focused mind.

"We can't abandon everyone here, though. You know that." Robin's voice wavers, and his heart falls. It's her motherly side again, breaking through, thinking of the others before herself, when it's quite impertinent that she gets out of there alive before some Syrenet foot soldier. D'Artagnan would be proud.

He sighs, running a hand through his hair. Snake's hands are tied, he feels. It is futile to back out into the streets and fight. It is cowardly to go and run, to go back to D.C with their tails between their legs. He looks back at her, and there's dried blood stuck to Robin's face, underneath her left eyebrow, curving upwards to her scalp, splattered on her face when he shoots the remaining man, the one holding the gun to her head. She's covered in her would be killer's blood and she hasn't said a word.

Snake wrings his hands together, clamping down so the skin is tautly pulled back, a string that'll get tighter and tighter until it breaks from exertion. "Robin... what do you think happened back there?"

When she responds, Robin's voice is hollow, raspy, almost to the point if she had been a fifty year plus smoker before speaking. Her eyes glean with another unreadable emotion, one he likens to fear or regret, but it's something else entirely different. It's pure fright, a fright that transcends fear, where her worst nightmares have come true by some faint whim of the imagination. "When Corrin and I were elected into office, we put together an idea called the Canary and Viper Operations. Should either one of us be in a situation separated from one another, where our lives were on the line, we'd find a way to enact each other's operations. Since my name is a bird namesake, Corrin chose 'Canary'. I chose Viper, purely because of her likeliness..." she looks away for a moment, down at her hands, as if there's blood on them, as if she's the one who fired Snake's pistol. "This operation would be a way to get them out of the danger as quick as possible. My Operation Viper, which I've never had to implement this entire presidency, is that a military squad parachutes down into her vicinity, and using smokescreens, flares, and other tactics, confuse the enemy to get her to a safe chopper nearby."

"And Corrin's plan? Operation Canary?" Snake urges on.

Robin shakes her head, tears beginning to prickle at the sides of her face. "We never told each other what the plan would be. Just to expect it to happen should we have ever been in trouble," she shakes her head again, this time laughing, a laugh so airy and whimsical it almost brings life back to her old self. "The man, before he pressed the gun barrel to my head... he had a walkie-talkie. He said he was executing Corrin's plan for Operation Canary..." and Robin closes her eyes, a single tear slipping out, her voice cracking. "Corrin's plan to get me to safety was to _kill_ me, Snake! Corrin was going to execute me! Why?"

He's at her side immediately, holding her hands, forcing her to look him in the eyes. "Look at me Robin. Look at me!" his urgent tone causes her to break from her lapse, momentarily, enough for him to latch on and take hold. "None of us know what happened for sure. Those men may not have even been secret service agents."

"And if they were?"

"Then that means someone has gone rouge and taken others with them."

"And if not?" Robin's voice dares to break once more, her cheeks shimmering silver with fresh tears still clinging to flesh. "If those were real secret service agents designated with the task of killing me, at Corrin's behest?"

Snake locks his jaw, looking away. This is the thought that has been plaguing him, the notion that Corrin Etch, as weird, and sharp-tongued, and cruel as she can be, would go so far to murder her own vice president in some weird form of safeness. What else would that spell out? It meant he wouldn't be able to trust the commander-in-chief, and when has that ever led to anything successful?

He stands up again, letting go of Robin's hand, the cold air rushing to meet his empty palm. There's no time to continue discussing possibilities of who and what may have tried eliminating Robin from the equation. There's only one goal, and that's getting the hell out of Detroit and as far away from any rebel groups as they could.

"We can't stay here, Robin," he says, again, because he can, as if she already didn't know it.

Robin stands, still shaking, but she's stopped crying, for now at least. There's no way to get in touch with any of the others - Shulk, Roy, Ike, Pit, Lucas, and even Marth to an extent are sitting in the water like ducks, a storm raging on all sides. Midna is gone somewhere, likely removed from the scenario as well. How do you regroup when the group is scattered among the wind? - which does absolutely nothing to put his heart to rest.

She rubs her chin, frowning. Robin marches to the other set of windows, the ones facing right if one were to sit on the couch, the warzone in the city to their left out the other set of windows. Snake follows her to it, as if she possibly sees something on the other side, and wouldn't that help greatly? It is a complete night and day out the other side, no 'almost' about it. The sky is divided into two halves, one desolate and destroyed, with crumbling high-rise buildings, sulfur spilling into the once azure sky, and the other, blue, cloudy, almost untouched, a city skyline left quiet.

The vice president retracts herself from the window, her gaze telling.

Snake raises an eyebrow. "Robin?"

"Isn't the airport that way?" she asks. "We landed at the Detroit International Airport and had to drive west... right?"

He looks back out the window, frowning, then back at her. "I... I think so. Why?"

Her eyes light up, an emotion that is almost so shocking, it nearly knocks him off of his feet, given what has transpired within the last three hours. "I think I found our way out of here. I think I found a way to get everyone back to us."

* * *

Hopelessness.

That's the emotion that Pit is feeling right now, in this current moment and time, trapped underneath the Detroit subway system, feeling the crushing weight of the tar, the explosions, the fire, the bodies, and the fact he is all alone, in near pitch darkness, and nothing but the echo of his voice to keep him company. He's gone hoarse a long time ago, from constantly screaming Ike's name in the everlasting black, to yelling at his stupid Automatic Army drones, for running into brick walls and not knowing his commands. He's a programmer, dammit! His work is faultless, he knows this, the vice president knows this, and yet he's found himself stuck in an impossible situation.

He goes through his entire training regiment in his head, wandering the sewers aimlessly. Ike's voice is a constant drone in his head. " _Keep your head up. Don't panic. Look for telltale signs where you are. Try to indicate what time of day it is. Use whatever you can find as a weapon. Trust no one._ " Shamefully, he's already broken the second rule - it didn't take him very long to _not_ do that, but he bets every cent he owns, which isn't much, that Ike is not exactly having a peachy time either. The telltale signs about where he is, it's quite hard to not notice the smell, to notice the way his shadow distorts on the wall, bending like a hunchback, with claws for hands, a cackle in his throat versus the pleading he is giving the stone.

Pit wipes sweat off of his brow. It is unbearably hot, a heat that makes itself very aware, where he can feel the sweat on his arms having their own sweat bubbles inside. Hitting against his side at the fast pace he is walking, although he's trying to ignore it, is his gun, taken because he felt the need to, when Ike grins and says they're going into a warzone. His hands still encircle it very shakily, fingers trembling around the stone-cold butt of the pistol; he knows his aim is pretty damn hit or miss. Saying it aloud gives verification to the fact he is not a great shot, but he is not hired by Corrin to work at Syrenet to be their head programmer because of his fighting skills. Leave that the to the men designed to do that in life, their godly given purpose.

A voice speaks to the back of his head. _You volunteered yourself to be Beta Squad captain. Fighting is part of the job._

" _Go to hell, you asshole,_ " Pit hisses back, and he's slightly repulsed by his own words. He's hardly ever gotten tart with anyone, and especially not a voice in his own head, that he can somehow have arguments with. It's a voice he's never heard, a voice that sounds quite masculine, and there are intermittent flashes of someone or something when the voice speaks back to him, a flash of ruby red in the center of an olive green surface; it is unidentifiable to Pit what exactly he is looking at, but it only happens occasionally when he and the voice converse.

He's held the gun before, like the one time he swings it haphazardly, not because he believes it to be a toy - he understands the dangers full and well about misfiring one - but because people can forget things, something Ike has seem to _forgotten,_ ironically, when he blows up at him and stalks out of the training center in a rage. It leaves Pit standing there on the training mat, the gun swinging back and forth in his hand, completely taken out of the moment. What is he supposed to do about any of that?

Since then, he can probably count on the number of times he's fought anyone. Back in the streets of Chicago, the night all the guys got drunk, from what Roy tells him, he had been pretty incapable of even lifting his fists, let alone firing a weapon. The Chicago Syrenet conference, the disaster it was, with Marth paralyzed, and their morale crumpled... Pit needs no one to remind him what a useless piece of shit he had been, cowering over Marth's wounded body, his hand is trembling, the barrel pointing at anything that moves, but still unable to squeeze the trigger.

There's been nights - well, it's only been three days since Chicago - that he's had conversations with the voice in his head. As if he is hearing it in the very room he is in, such as that crowded motel room, where Roy slumbers on the couch next to the air conditioner, a unit that rattles more than a rattlesnake's tail, blowing shale and hot dust into the air. Corrin wants to remain unseen, for _sure,_ as if the half motorcade outside is not enough. He finds it suspicious, even voicing it to the alter ego yelling at him backwards iotas and whatnot, that there isn't a secret service detail with them at all times, or even surveillance other than the Syrenet crew... but perhaps Corrin is pulling strings in places where she has the ability to do so. It is not his prerogative to question things like that, but he _does,_ because he can.

 _You won't amount to nothing,_ the voice tells him.

 _"You know what doesn't amount?" Pit frowns, scratching his head, stretching his limbs out so his ankles roll and have euphoric bubbles pop in the empty spaces. "Where's the team to make sure Chicago's event didn't happen?"_

 _You question the wrong things._

 _"Or perhaps it is you who is wrong."_

Confidence does not come easily to Pit, he'll admit that readily. He knows it, ever since he was young, now to his youthful age. Standing up for himself is not what goes to the forefront of his mind, despite millions of warning signs telling him that he needs to learn how to man up, to take charge, to put himself to action, but it just doesn't get there. He skips Steps A, B, C, and D, jumping all the way to E, which entails running away because all of the other options meant certain failure, or at least a face being bashed in.

However, when he has this voice battering him with insults and self-doubt, a sultriness in their voice, a heaviness, like someone desperately wanting someone else to cave into their desires... Pit feels his heart swell. His body warms up, life flowing through his veins. Not some metaphorical bullshit kind of life, where flowers bloom or something boring, but an anger. A resurgence. That there's something he cannot see, something he cannot combat, and they're tearing him down. As if they don't even know him, and since it's a voice in his head, they _aren't_ real, and they _do not_ know him. Pit will go war over that ideology.

He rounds one corner, the tip of his booted left foot catching the rough edge of the corner, causing Pit to trip. He yelps in surprise, landing with a painful crash in the sewage. The smell is downright sickening, and he does not want to think about what exactly he's covered in. Come to think of it, the sewers themselves have been dead quiet the entire time he and Ike have been stuck down there, for what he reckons to be at least two hours. There's no sound of rushing water. No large fans with spinning blades. Just the occasional _drip-drip_ of water, where ivy stalks of moss grow on corners and in crevices he dare not touch.

Pit stands back up, the eerie quiet becoming real to him. "Gross!" he sneers, wiping off muck from his arms and legs. The cold feeling of the water and god knows what else leaves goosebumps on his skin, but there's more important things to think about on the horizon. He grimaces, swallowing his disgust heavily. The only thing not to get remotely wet is the right side of his face, his right ear, where one his comm is.

The technician wrinkles his nose, straightening out his outfit again. The gun is still stuck in his back pocket, holstered, but easily within reach if he has to fire. Close quarters are beyond dangerous, and he very well may end up dead, but it gives him a larger chance, a fighting chance to actually kill any sort of threat he comes across.

Something causes Pit to stop dead in his tracks, his feet squeaking on the soggy stone. What's that noise? He frowns, looking around. It isn't an echo, which means it'd be coming from somewhere far away. Rather, the noise seems to be echoing outwards _from_ him, meaning he's the cause of the sound. Pit furrows his eyebrows together. He hates when there are things in this world he cannot explain. This is one of them. What is it?

He cranes his head again, noticing that the sound is mainly coming from his right ear. Is- is that...

Is that _static?_

Pit's eyes widen. "Static..." he whispers to himself, almost as if it's some sort of curse word you cannot utter when you're around your grandparents or something. What would, in his right ear, have to deal with static?

His comm!

Immediately his right hand goes to ear, pressing against the earpiece, hoping for a stronger clarification in the signal. This means only one thing. Someone is using the Syrenet channel, a blocked signal only given to those in Syrenetic service - for this instance, Roy, Shulk, Marth, Ike, Snake, Midna, Mac, and himself, the president and vice president opting to have a stronger way of getting in touch with one another - and they're aiming specifically for Pit's own device.

The sewers are blocking the signal, however, where whatever is coming through is being scattered, which does not help him much. A little bit can be heard on the other side, which whomever is trying to contact him, but it is garbled at best, indecipherable at worst, and he's going to go to the worst in this situation. From the tone, he can tell it's male, ruling out Midna entirely.

He's close. Pit is so close to getting contact. Regardless of who it is, whether they be trapped in the sewers like him, or they're somewhere else, in the city, getting bombarded, it's another voice besides his own, and that in itself is a godsend. He tries amplifying the signal, but the burst of static only gets louder, causing him to wince. Pit looks around, whirling. He's at another crossroad, with a different lane going in all four cardinal directions.

His heart goes to sink again. If he goes back, he might as well curl up and die. It's a hedge maze, and he hates those. However, before he can let a curse slip from his lips, where his tangible sanctitude is nearly about to flee out of his grasp, he sees a beam of light. One of the corridors is brighter than the other, with a flood of light that looks like sunlight. Sunlight...

Sunlight means the outside.

The outside means another level beyond the sewers.

That level means an escape route.

An escape route out of the sewers and a way to amplify the signal.

Pit takes off running, slipping a few times, but he can careless at this point; he can be free, back into the arms of friends and family, those he cares about, and away from this godforsaken place. Let the rebels and the traitors tear themselves apart. Pit needs a corner to rock himself in for the rest of his life. His boots make splashing sounds as he runs, water sloshing up the side, as he passes all the tiny cubes with amber lights, the amber glow strengthening itself every once in awhile, as Pit gets closer and closer.

Sunlight spills over his face in a large crater when he reaches the destination, looking upwards. It's a massive hole, perhaps another spot where a mortar, either from the rebels or the U.S government, exploded, leaving this crater. Light pours in, as this hole goes through the subway system above him, that service stopped completely as well. Another burst of static in his ear, and for a moment, as Pit forgot, his safety comes back in spades.

Tears begin to spill down his cheeks, crystalline droplets forming an overflow of emotion, and while he cries, he is smiling, wanting to jump up and down for you.

The signal comes through, and it is one voice, over and over again, saying,

"This is Snake Karlo. I am with Robin Wyndel. If you are a member of Syrenet and you can hear this, please respond. We need your help to find where you are. Detroit is under attack. We have to get out of here. Please, respond!"

Pit presses the comm, and his heart reaches an elixir of happiness that he's never expected in his life, better than the dredged out sexual encounter, or winning the lottery, or finding the love of his life.

It is the feeling of freedom.

He's going to escape this ruined, wretched, burning shithole of a city.

"Snake, this is Pit Icarus. I copy. I am in the sewers, making my way to the surface..."

There's a pause. He licks his lips.

"We're all going to get home."

* * *

 _It is a sweltering August day at the Roberts' residence, a quaint home with a wooden porch painted a daisy suntan yellow, all the doors and windows open, curtains blowing in a breeze that does hardly anything to combat the beastly heat. Shulk is dressed down in a simple see-through white dress shirt, unbuttoned, revealing his chest, light shorts on to keep himself cool. He stands in the kitchen, hands on his hips, staring at the fridge, head titled to the side._

 _Fiora is somewhere else in the house, but he doesn't remember. Today's another normal day away from the Syrenet shenanigans, though Corrin can pick up the phone at the White House and call anytime, truth be told. She wouldn't dare though, however, this is Shulk Roberts's residence, and he is going to destroy anyone who tries to ruin this perfect, albeit scorching day. There is a pitcher of lemonade sitting on the kitchen counter, with two glasses filled with ice. It's a fresh brew, sugar just added, which he's waiting for it to settle so he can stir it all up, ready to pour._

 _However, what has him occupying his time, waiting for the sugar to mix in appropriately before then spooning it all, is their shared refrigerator. They have - he and Fiora, together - have owned their house for ten years at least, though the restraints of time have always been lost on him, it's purely a number meant to represent something else, but metonymy does not work here, nor does synecdoche, but regardless, Shulk knows it's been a long time. Their fridge is blank. Nothing on it. No pictures of themselves. No fridge magnets, which every family in the world owns something like that, but not them. It is almost as if they wish to stay away from keeping such things in their lives, things that seem trivial._

 _No jokes. No vacation spots. No pictures of D.C or any of its sights. Come on, it's a rule that for anyone living in D.C, there has to be a picture of the White House, or an ornament of some kind that is the Washington Monument, but Shulk has none of it on there, and Fiora has never lifted a finger to try and remedy that. However, as he stands there, something begins to irk him, when he looks at the fridge. He's been to Corrin and Cloud's private getaway in Norfolk. The house is not much, just a four bedroom, single floor house, surrounded by a few miles of woods, and it's just that house, so there's the charm. On the refrigerator there, which isn't even the one in the residence or their mansion home that acts as a vacation home away from home, there's tons of pictures. Showcasing their trip to Cancun, with kissed by the sun tans and perfect white teeth and the blend of blonde and silver hair, or the one with the two of them in the mountains, surrounded by snow... even the president and her husband are able to find the time to give themselves a reminder of their happy days._

 _"What happy days?" Shulk snorts to himself._

 _It is wonderful having a vacation, even though they are not staying far away, always in close proximity to D.C and Syrenet should the silver eagle ever call upon them. Another thought that makes him shake his head in disbelief. They are always being called upon, but he's giving Corrin too much grace. She wouldn't so much as less bring the entire United States military to knock down their humble abode. With as much gracefulness as a snake watching its prey, and as much cruelty as when the viper sinks its fangs into the unsuspecting doe._

 _He turns around from the fridge, deciding not to dwell any longer on the idiosyncrasies of he and Fiora's marriage or their house. He's heard the statement of reevaluating your life and each aspect of it, but Shulk is not an ordinary man who thinks he's in trouble. If he wants to focus on anything, it should be the future. An amazing future, a happy future, a future that'll give him glory everlasting, and he can finally be done with Corrin and the devils associated with the Syrenet program once and for all._

 _Something passes by him out of the right side of his field of vision, a flowing movement of cloth, and he knows exactly who it is. It's Fiora, going out to sit on the porch, to relish in her chilled lemonade and golden view of the setting sun. She's beautiful, he thinks for a moment, and nothing on Earth can compare. He grabs the pitcher of lemonade and both glasses, heading out to the front door. The heat and humidity hits his skin, tightness and tautness clinging to him like a bodysuit._

 _Fiora stands in the center of the porch, her hair blowing aimlessly in the wind, half of her face shrouded in a cover of corn. She's wearing a white sundress, the wisps of flowing cotton and velvet strands extending behind her, as if she's on a cliff, with a salty sea breeze. She turns around to him, and Shulk pauses in the middle of his next step, noticing her face. Pure joy. Pure... elation. A feeling he's never really seen her ever emote, despite having a genuinely bubbly and happy personality. This is a whole other level to this, however._

 _There's something in her hand, he tries to get better at seeing it, but it is partially obstructed. It's a long strip, paper perhaps, and he can see several colors going vertically across the length of the paper, a plastic shelling over the design... and at the end, a positive plus sign._

 _Shulk drops the full pitcher of lemonade, which shatters with a crash, water, sugar, and mix spilling everywhere. The glasses fall from his hands as well, likewise breaking, but he doesn't care. He runs over to her, picking her up by the waist, swinging her around, they're both laughing, the laughter mixing together for a pure angelic sound that even the cherubs in heaven cannot replicate. He has his hands at her face, and he's kissing her, she's kissing him, their hearts tethered together as one._

 _They're in the airport, flying somewhere, Arizona, if Shulk remembers correctly. He and Fiora are sitting side by side, hands interlinked, arms intertwined, she's reading a magazine, he an Ayn Rand novel because there's nothing better in the bookstore. A couple sits down, an older looking man and a younger woman, the man probably in his fifties, the woman maybe just reaching her lower-forties. Having children is perhaps too light of a statement, the couple that is. Boggled down is more like it. Shulk gives them the stink eye, purely out of spite. He's been trying to have a child with Fiora for months now, months and months and they're not getting anywhere. Constant miscarriage after miscarriage, and it comes down in a timely manner that the doctors reveal that it is Shulk's seed himself that is infertile, creating an embryo that is unsustainable They're both devastated to hear this, and now, whenever they see a couple with children, it's all they can do to put their envy on others. How is this couple so lucky to have five kids? How the hell is that possible?_

 _Fiora whispers something to him about how a minimum of six years must've been taken to give them their children, but she says it with the social etiquette of a child with Tourette's, unfortunately speaking louder than she wishes to, which gets the couple's attention. What they find out, which is surprising to Shulk in how they have the money to do so, is that the man suffers himself from the safe affliction as the Syrenet commander, which has happened later on in life than being onset since birthing due to extensive smoking. Their last two children were done with sperm banks and other birthing aide processes that have never occurred to either he or Fiora._

 _They exchange numbers and multiple apologies, and then take it upon themselves to try. Their test is submitted just a few days ago, Fiora undergoing the procedure, and the results, whether they be positive or negative were supposed to be within the next week at least._

 _This... is this? Could it possibly be?_

 _They're still both laughing, and she's hugging his waist, still intertwined in front of their lawn, dressed in their sun clothes, shards of glass and liquid lemonade milling around them, not that they care._

 _"We're going to have a baby?" he asks, breaking the mold of the conversation first. He places her down on the porch. "We're going to get a baby, aren't we, Fiora?"_

 _She smiles back at him, fingers pressed into his biceps, and she throws her arms around him in a hug. "We're having a baby, Shulk! I tested positive."_

 _There is no way, and this is a process Shulk thinks through late at night, staring at the etchings of the ceilings and making book titles out of what he sees in the designs, that the man's sample used to help he and Fiora get a child will be faulty like his. He's not allowed to donate or provide, specifically instructed by multiple healthcare professionals. The problem is not Fiora, it has never been Fiora, it is him, it has always been him._

 _Like the reason your marriage is failing, a voice whispers, behind his skull, but Shulk ignores it despite the chills sliding down the base of his neck, causing all the hair to stand up on end._

 _He cannot stop breaking into a grin, no matter what his other bodily signs tell him. He'll let his cheeks hurt till the end of time to ride the wave of this good news. "We're going to be parents, Fiora. We're going to be parents!"_

 _She holds out the pregnancy test, closing her eyes, and he watches a tear fall out from one of them; she's actually starting to cry. Fiora Roberts does not cry, it is not in her human expression. It is not because Fiora Roberts is a cold blooded woman, due to her extensive killing, far from it, but that she has seldom ever experienced anything to make her cry. Whenever she loses her children, her unborn children, with names scratched onto the walls and written down in tiny coffers - Lisa, Ben, Jennifer, Franklin, Elijah - there's a surge of madness, where she vaults things across the room, where the doctors and nurses have to restrain her from causing any more disruptions or possible bodily harm. She cries when she loses her first, a girl, they were going to name her Lisa, and have her dye her hair an edgy black, as Shulk cannot stand seeing another blonde in their household... Fiora weeps and Shulk drinks, at the thought of their unborn, laying in the ground underneath, wrapped in cloth, under a sapling tree._

 _This is possible._

 _This is finally happening._

 _Something else hits Shulk's mind then and there, thinking about this new child they're going to have. "Our dream can be realized, Fiora. It can actually happen..." he says, mystification following his tone, and Fiora's face brightens to even higher heights, if that is somehow possible._

 _Shulk loves serving his country, he does not mind Syrenet and its missions. He does not lose sleep over his kills and those he has had to screw over in order to complete his daily routine... Fiora is in the same boat, but as time has continued, as his stay as Syrenet's leader with his wife by his side, he can no longer work for Corrin Etch and her administration. He senses something there, something underneath, where, before she's even president there's a vileness. A lurking evil that stalks between the emerald waves of grass, or the child predator sitting in a typically auspicious van. He senses this coming on the rise. All he has to do is last nine more months._

 _Nine months of Fiora's pregnancy, in which she eventually will be able to leave this mess behind her. When their baby is born, he is going to retire. He'll be well off, and so will she, with retirement, and a pension for service to the United States. Every memory that is Shulk and Fiora Roberts will be wiped away clean, erased, gone forever, and this will happen in due time. They didn't serve at Syrenet. There has never been a Shulk or Fiora Roberts enlisted in the Syrenetic services, nor serving as the commander of the Alpha Squad. Shulk will keep Lucas in his back pocket, taking the AI Unit's disc, which Pit will have a field day of, most certainly, only because he cannot part with the little guy. This will all happen, as he has ordained it from the very beginning. Nothing Shulk has ever done besides marrying the love of his life will ever be a finalized decision._

 _"We can leave Syrenet..." Fiora whispers, echoing her husband's dream, his fantasy, his vision. "We can put Syrenet behind us. All our red in our ledger..." then, a slight souring in her expression, a tartness that is noticed. "Our child will have killers for parents..."_

 _"Hey, don't think like that," he admonishes, placing a warm hand to her cheek. "Our child is going to have two citizens who protected all the others, including him or her. They'll be luckier than some, for kids whose parents are drug addicts, who beat them, who are in prison for rape or murder... or-" he could go on and on, and that's a very true statement, but Shulk cuts himself off. He's making his point very clear, by the way Fiora's brow keeps on furrowing deeper and deeper, enough to plant sunflower seeds and grow a garden._

 _"I don't want our child joining the military, Shulk," she adds, after a pause, chewing on the inside of her cheek._

 _"We can cross that bridge when we get there, Fiora."_

 _"I'm serious," her gaze snaps to him, cold, stone-like, hard. "I don't want them to have any blood on their hands, innocent or not, I don't want it. Please, promise me that."_

 _"Fiora, I-" he goes to butt in again._

 _"Shulk..." she grabs his arm, pressing down a finger again into his bicep, but not out of lovingness, but assurance, a readily needed assurance. There's nothing more special and kindred than the love a mother has for her son or daughter. Hell hath no fury like a woman who is scorned._

 _He winces in the pain, she's seldom used such tactics to get him to agree, but they've been trying for years, and its exhausting. God will finally let them have their perfect baby. "Yes, Fiora... I promise. We'll keep them out of the military-"_

 _"And away from Corrin."_

 _"Away from Corrin..."_

 _Fiora lets go of his arm, exhaling a shaky breath. This is good. Life will be good... they're going to have a kid..._

 _It hits him again, this new fresh wave of thought, and he's back to her, hugging her tight, kissing her._

 _"We're going to have a child, Fiora. We're finally going to be free from all of this."_

 _"We will be," she smiles back at him, resting her head against his chest, her own head rising with every breath he takes, the drumming of his heartbeat soothing her ears._

 _Together, the two of them stand on their porch, locked in an embrace, the shattered pitcher of lemonade broken between them, spilling onto the wood and out into the grass, a sickly sweet smell of sugar filling the air. A mingle of new promises, and on the horizon, he and Fiora's new life. One without Corrin. One without Syrenet. One without the pain, lying, tears, sadness, revolt, disgust, the putrid smell of vomit, and so much blood._

 _It is so beautiful, beautiful enough to tantalize the tongue._

 _Shulk can almost taste it._

* * *

There is flashes of agony behind Roy's eyes. The next insert of wire is reflecting off of one of the shaking lights above, swinging back and forth, the glimmer passing over his face in a burnt façade of copper, flesh, halcyon, heavenly shrouding, and a hellfire darkness. Ganondorf is preparing something that he cannot see, the cyborg's back turned to him. The pain is still there, blood dripping off of his fingernails, Roy raising his arm weakly to his face, although his bindings prevent him from getting any further. He's actually starting to cry, something he regrets doing, but he does not feel lesser because of this. Regardless of who would be in his position, they'd be sobbing too. Roy is surprised he hasn't fainted yet, as having metallic wire strung through your body is no pleasant feeling, clearly. It is a virus that needs to be eradicated, but nothing like Penicillin will ease the sorrows. It wouldn't be much, but Roy would love some Penicillin.

He cannot stop thinking about what Ganondorf had just recently said, before deciding to slice him up even further. The real usage for why Shulk is at the Needle... so Corrin can gain total coverage of the United States via its cellular services... a spying, a spying that Shulk is either willing to do, or has no idea to what he's really going to do. Sure, it will scope out the rebels and that means they can be finished off once and for all... but it gives Corrin a power to so much more.

What really stops him is that it is apparently Corrin who designates Fiora's death. Shulk has been searching for the real reason, the real murderers of his wife, and if what Ganondorf says is true, then that means the person Shulk has been looking for he's been eating with, drinking with, laughing with... _serving_ , every day since the incident, and he has no idea. The wool is pulled over his eyes.

Roy does not want to believe it. Ganondorf is lying, bluffing, every such sort of way to try and divide the Syrenet crew, because he can. Because he has the power. How is the redhead exactly supposed to argue back with the councilor? It isn't necessarily feasible, being chained up to a chair and having electrical equipment sewn into your flesh. What would Ganondorf gain from telling Roy the truth if he knows he is as good as dead at this point? No one knows he's missing, no one knows likely where he is, and no one is likely going to save him at this point. He's going to be the cyborg's plaything, his puppet, his piece of machinery to rework, disassemble and build back all over again... and thought terrifies him.

What also terrifies Roy is another thought. What if Ganondorf isn't lying? If he's telling the truth, then that means Corrin is the one who needs to be taken down, alongside Sheik and her Midwestern rebel army, and now Ganondorf, who plans on making others losses his gains... and to extend it further, if Shulk knows the truth, _knows_ what he is doing with the Needle, and going to go ahead and do it anyways. There's nothing more frightening than blind loyalty.

The more he thinks about it, the more it starts to make sense, which is why Ganondorf mocks him, saying that Roy believes him in the deepest corners of his soul, he just does not want to admit it, like any sane man would. Roy has thought about it fleetingly, back to when he receives Corrin's letter in the mail, sending him to the Syrenet headquarters for initiation, or even stuck in his hospital bed with his leg wound, Midna's own scarlet hair a backdrop to the white halls, wondering why he's sent to Boston to be terrorized by Link Collins if the FBI agent is already there. Throughout all of this, there's a single thought in his mind.

 _What is President Corrin Etch capable of? How far will she go to achieve certain things?_

There's been talks of using nuclear firepower against the rebels, which, well, by bombing the country itself, it'd kill everyone and cause nuclear fallout, an option she has been talked down many times. So what is the most likely option? To see with God's sort of vision, an omnipotence granted by the creator himself, to know what each and every one of her citizens are thinking, know who they root for, their likes and dislikes, their favorite type of pasta, where they work... and most of all, what they say. A ruler can then purge their kingdom of the naysayers, to be queen or king of all till the end of time.

Roy's pretty sure he's going insane at this point.

Ganondorf pauses at his worktable, lifting his head up. "You're shaking in fear, Mr. Arcadia."

The Syrenet agent wants to curse back at him and yell spiteful things, but he's right, the cyborg is dead right, as if he has eyes on the back of his head. He's terrified, he's been terrified ever since he's heard Ganondorf's voice in the sewers, taunting him and Shulk as their feet are sloshed in sewage water. Yet, despite what his mind says, Roy replies back, "No, I'm not."

The councilor turns, shaking his head. "Like a wet dog. You are going to shit yourself any minute, aren't you? Isn't that what you felt when Link Collins tied you to a chair as well? In nothing but your underwear? Stuck a knife in your leg? At least I have the decency to keep you _clothed_."

Roy's eyes widen. Ganondorf has already taunted him about being held captive by Link Collins in Boston all those days ago, all those months ago, a timeline that feels like it never even happened. However, how does he know that he is only tied up in his underwear, which is true? Or that Link stabbed him in the leg with a knife? The scarring cannot be seen, since Roy has pants on underneath the suit of armor he had been wearing... how does he know? "How do you- I..." he's at a loss for words. The only two people left alive who know any of those details are Midna and Snake, neither one of them present in the room.

"I told you, Mr. Arcadia, that I see all. What am I?" Ganondorf asks.

The redhead squints his eyes, although some of it is nausea from the pain. "What?"

"I am not trying to trick you. What am I?"

"A cyborg. Half Syrenet, half man..." Roy says wearily, head starting to sway.

"Half Syrenet," Ganondorf echoes. "I am half of the technological network that you and all of your devices belong to. I have eyes in everything you own. I see Shulk, your Commander Roberts, nearing the Needle destination, where he'll cause this country's certain doom. I hear every conversation. I saw through Ness's own eyes when Link stabbed you, I felt the pain rivet through my circuit board. I was there in Ness's last moments before his system went dark by a specified shutdown..." the cyborg's eyes glint with an emotion of something that Roy cannot read, and the gemstone in his head glows again. There's something Ganondorf is not saying. "Your comms, the communication devices you all speak to each other with... I am _in_ those. Your technician, the one who has helped design all of this... who in part designed me, he's having conversations with a voice in his head. It's me, speaking dissent and doubt into his brain. He argues back that whatever is speaking to him is not real. Imagine his fear and excitement when I reveal myself, a child of his creation, as you are likewise to me..." he begins to pace around the backside of the Syrenet agent. "No one knows this, now except for you. Surprisingly, with Corrin's goal, she doesn't know I am a virus plaguing your program. I wanted it to succeed for a long time, I really have... but ever since she turned her back on me, with what I have done for her, it is no longer an option."

He goes back to the work bench, and Roy's heart continues beating in his chest. This new wave of information is going to kill him, he swears. It's too much to take in at one time. Who is the master puppet player here? Is it Ganondorf letting the rebels know they're location, or has he simply been waiting in the shadows, for a moment of rebirth to come back and flip the chessboard upside down since he does not like the way the table is set? There's no real answer to any of this, a thought that terrifies Roy as much as it confuses him.

"Why, I-" Roy starts, but he's immediately interrupted.

Ganondorf swivels on his heel, a pair of tongs in his hand. Tongs? Roy frowns, fear creeping up underneath the blood in his veins. Why kitchen tongs? The cyborg's eyes are bright with wonder and lust. "Now, I imagine you're wondering. Why tell you all this? You know me... I have to explain myself, and since you're eventually going to be mine, why not give you all the necessary information..." he walks up to Roy, standing in front of him by a few feet. "Ask me, Mr. Arcadia. What is the purpose of me being inside all of these devices? Getting under the skin of every operative?" Roy does not answer. He's sick of playing these games. Even if he cooperates, all Ganondorf will do is hurt him. What kind of system is that? A terrible one. Lightning flashes behind the cyborg's eyes, and he snaps his fingers together. A searing pain, a crippling pain that brings bursts of fresh, ferocious white light to Roy's eyes causes him to scream in agony. The copper wire in his two fingers burns, as if the snap brings them to life. "I'm going to ask you again, Mr. Arcadia. Why have I relayed all of this to you?"

Roy lets out a shaky gasp, a breath full of hatred, fire, and agony. He twists his neck, muscles bulging out underneath, his skin getting darker and darker with blood rushing to the surface. "To divide us! To divide us..."

Ganondorf snaps again, and the fire recedes. He marches into Roy's line of vision, gripping him underneath the jaw, forcing him to look the cyborg in the eye. "Syrenet was once my pride and joy, until your president ripped it away from me. That's what I am going to do to her, to never let her vision come to the light of day. Once this is done, as Shulk's proceedings will take an hour or two at most, I am going to go to him. I will take his eyes from his sockets and chain him down here forever, where Corrin's greatest asset cannot help her anymore," a fresh wave of rage boils itself underneath Roy's skin. Shulk is not to blame for any of this. He's merely a pawn! "Once that is done, I will take myself to Corrin's feet, show her my work, have her congratulate me... and then I will bury her, crushing the head of the viper with my booted foot. God once said that, you know, about Satan, about the snake, in the Garden of Eden. She'll see me for the terrifying creature that I am, and before I am finished, she will wish I had been with her since the beginning. That she didn't throw me out and toss away the key into her kingdom."

He lets go of his jaw, and Roy tosses back his favorite saying that he's been using for hours. "You're still insane Ganondorf... you're insane." He wants to respond with anger towards what the cyborg said about Shulk, and that he will never harm the Alpha Commander as long as he's in the Syrenet suit with Lucas, but it hits him that the cyborg _is_ Syrenet... he is in the system and the only way to do that would purge the system.

The cyborg lifts a finger, taking the tongs and this time three metallic rods, each about two feet in length into his hands. Roy's blood runs cold. Where are those going to be inserted into his body?

Ganondorf steps back up. "This will hurt, I am not going to lie to you," another chill runs through Roy's body. "These rods will connect to the wires in your hands, connecting to your spinal cord, up to the cortex of your brain," a triumphant glance replaces the scientific one in the cyborg's eyes. "You'll be mine, Mr. Arcadia. You'll be connected to the Syrenet database, you'll see what I see, hear what I hear. Be all knowing. You're going to help me capture Shulk, help me crush Corrin, and then, once the dust settles, anyone else in Syrenet will fall in line after seeing what I have to you. Anyone who tries to rebel, I'll destroy. Bear with me, and soon all of your suffering will be over." He advances.

"No."

A pause. A tilt of the head. "Excuse me?"

"No," Roy looks up at Ganondorf boldly. If there's one last thing he is going to do before he dies, it will be going with a fight, giving Ganondorf a struggle, and not letting anything just _happen_ to him. "You won't control me. No one can control me. You're going to lose..."

The cyborg's eyes flash in anger, and this time he takes one of the metal rods and raises it above Roy's head. "Fine! If you won't go easily, I'll make you wish you were dead!"

Roy closes his eyes, waiting for the first blow, for the blow to come, but nothing happens. The arm is never lowered, nothing strikes him, Ganondorf's reach does not come down. Instead, there's the sound of something being slammed open, someone running into a room, and the evident cocking of a gun. Whatever movement happens above his head ceases, instead aiming at the obstruction in the room.

"You touch Roy with that rod and it'll be the last thing you do..." says a voice, a feminine voice, and Roy has never been happier to hear her than at this moment in time.

"Midna!" he gasps, straining to see her.

Midna Nye, in all of her former glory, is standing in the entrance to Ganondorf's workshop, pistol in hand, the barrel aimed directly at the cyborg. Her hair is haphazard down her back, a few cuts and bruises lining her arms, her skin covered in a thin layer of what appears to be coal dust or ash. Ganondorf steps back away from Roy, mouth in a sneer. He knows who this is, of course, without Roy's prompting of her name. He has seen everything and everyone. Roy looks at the cyborg with a smirk. If this being is so omnipotent in his realm, how did he not sense her presence or that she was coming close? He's mortal, just like he and her... Ganondorf is distracted.

"Shame," Ganondorf says, lowering the metal rod down to his level, Midna following him still with the gun barrel. "You're ugly up close..." As if there wasn't a more wrong statement to be had.

Then, bracing out the rod, he rushes at her. It catches Midna off guard, since he had lowered the rod. She turns the gun a bit, firing, the bullet missing Ganondorf cleanly, whizzing by Roy's ear. He yelps. Ganondorf collides into her, both falling to the floor in a flurry of scarlet. Roy struggles at his bonds, gasping in exertion as nothing is happening, the metallic bindings like that of the cyborg's back getting tighter rather than looser to undo. Midna is trying to keep Ganondorf's hands away from her eyes, the cyborg clawing away at her face, trying to snag onto any bit of flesh that she can. The metal rod is discarded next to Midna. She grabs it, slamming it against the side of Ganondorf's head, causing him to fall off her.

He spins over, she climbing on top of him. She presses the crook of her elbow into his throat, reaching back for her gun. When she comes up empty handed, Midna looks at the palm in surprise. Her gun is thrown over by the side of Roy's chair, in which he's now trying to angle his hands at it instead... although it wouldn't do too much good. This moment of distraction allows Ganondorf another chance. Like he did back in the council chamber, he dissipates, dissolving like metallic sheets of paper. Her eyes widen at the witchery, at the 'magic', before he reappears behind her, pummeling into her back.

Midna goes flying against the wall, groaning out in pain. He stomps over to her, lifting her up by the throat, his hand encircled around the darker hue of flesh. Roy is jumping up and down in the chair now. Ganondorf presses Midna up against the work bench, holding her up as her head then hits the ceiling. Red spots begin to fill her vision. She starts to cough, trying to grasp onto something, trying to pull his arm down, but he's stronger, he's much stronger, her fingers slipping off the metallic surface that is his metal arm. Midna kicks out, flailing limbs, flailing her legs, and her foot collides with his shin, doing nothing as if a pebble was thrown at it. She starts to make choking sounds, Ganondorf gritting his teeth, squeezing, _squeezing._

Roy bites on his tongue, screaming in fury. He is not going to watch her die. She is trying to save him, and he is stuck here, tied up, just like when it is Link's smirking face instead. He is not letting this fiend get the better of him, that is not happening. There is no Snake firing sniper rifle bullets off in the distance to help this time around. It's just he and Midna against a magical beast. Pushing down with his legs, his muscles groan underneath the weight, but he strains, screaming further. Though he's horribly bent, terrible for his back, Roy breaks through, all the while yelling. Turning around so the back of the chair is facing Ganondorf, he backs up at full speed. The chair slams into Ganondorf's back, and the bindings around Roy's wrists shatter as if they never even existed, dissipating like smoke and sulfur. The blunt force surprises Ganondorf, but he does not waver all too much, his grip loosening slightly on Midna's throat. The chair breaks apart in Roy's collision, the redhead agent falling back onto the floor with a groan. His wound is starting to bleed less and less. Could he... would it be possible?

The attack and breaking of the chair is enough, just for a moment. Midna uses her right hand, grappling for anything on the table. Her hands encircle around the base of another one of the metal rods. Weakly using a bit of strength, she brings it around to slam into his side, enough with the bluntness of the chair breaking along his back that he lets go in surprise. Midna collapses to the floor with a gasp, heaving up onto the tile, shakily going for a breath. Ganondorf backs away, dissipating again so he's behind Roy, but the redhead expects it, scooting upwards to Midna, to help her stand. She takes his hand, getting to her feet, her throat on fire, fingerprints leaving indentions into her flesh. She'll walk it off, hopefully.

By this point, Ganondorf smirks, before Roy and Midna's eyes, _duplicates._ Like he had done all the way back in the Council of Thirteen, slicing the other twelve member's throats, his multiple copies begin to populate the room. Roy, for some reason, not thinking, grabs Midna's hand, pulling them away from the table, taking a screwdriver with him, the sharpest weapon he could find. No hammer, unfortunately. Ganondorf is laughing ever the while, a glow beginning to fill the room. An amber glow. _An amber glow..._ wait a minute. He and Midna ae now surrounded by copies of the cyborg, fourteen to be exact, each mirroring each other's movements, all laughing, all with their head titled back, the ruby gemstone in the center of his head shining, glowing, working.

Roy looks at Midna, and she at him. What do they do? He brings a hand to his head, as if he is going to wipe away some hair out of his eyes. He taps the center of his forehead repeatedly, hopefully she'll get the message, extending his pinkie outwards at the Ganondorf copy in front of him, a replica, or perhaps the real Ganondorf... who knows. The wires inside his fingers are burning, and he's trying to ignore it, ignore the pain, the steadfast pain. He extends the screwdriver past the circle of his fingers, showing it to Midna. If Ganondorf has any understanding of his intentions, he does not show it.

Screaming out a battle cry, Roy rushes forward, the screwdriver aimed high. This is for all the pain he's endured, all the suffering. Every. Last. Second. As his theory is proven correct, the replica he charges down the dead center is just that, not real. Roy brings the screwdriver down, and before it can connect with anything, the copy of Ganondorf disappears. However, it is not their trump card, as Roy turns to Midna, aims the screwdriver like throwing a baseball, and throws it. She catches it, spinning around to face the Ganondorf behind her, regardless of it being real or not, and before the replica can disappear, she jabs the screwdriver into the gemstone. It smashes right into the ruby in the center of the cyborg's head.

Everything goes still for a second, a single second of quiet, of harmony, but it does not last. There's a bright light that floods the room, a scarlet hue. Ganondorf's replicas all stutter, as if they were a static signal being disrupted by something in the sky. They disappear, one after the other, like dominoes, until it ends with the real cyborg, the real Ganondorf Perish, which is the one right behind Midna. Roy's eyes widen. He didn't expect that to work. He had no idea _what_ it would've done.

Midna backs away in fright, going to Roy, and without even realizing it, grabs his hand. Ganondorf steps forward, stumbling to one knee, placing a hand to his head, the gemstone cracking, breaking up, before ultimately shattering in his hands. All the color in his face and in his hair begins to recede until it is a pure white, a pure see-through, ghostly, translucent haze. Ganondorf looks up, his face beginning to tear away, like papier mache breaking in on itself, crumbling like a leaf being ripped to shreds by greedy hands.

"I was perfect..." he whispers, his tone full and evident of sadness. "You were going to be perfect... Roy. We were going to bring down Syrenet together. I..."

However, the cyborg never gets to finish his statement before his body disintegrates in on itself, colliding itself together and together like a perfect spiral, the ones seen in seashells, where all that remains is a single solid cube of steel, covered in a copper outer shell. Shards of the ruby remain on the floor, like bits of hopes and dreams - Ganondorf's hopes and dreams now - and the whims of his voice, a whisper that'll cling to the walls like tangible memories, phantom-esque hands holding onto whatever they can. The cyborg is gone. The cyborg has been destroyed.

Ganondorf Perish, the cyborg, half-human and half-Syrenet machine, the first of its kind, the murderer of Fiora and her baby, one of the Councilors of Detroit... is dead.

Oh my god.

 _Oh my god._

Roy's hands are still trembling. He doesn't know what to do. What does he do? What can he do now?

He and Midna look at each other, and all he sees reflected in her glance back at him is beauty, harmony, happiness, and relief. Roy doesn't hesitate, running back into her, throwing his arms around her in a hug, likewise she to him. He holds her tight, actually trembling in their embrace, shutting his eyes, pressing his head up against her neck, the softness of her hair falling down around his shoulders.

When they break apart, he notices he has tears in her eyes.

"Are you okay?" she asks.

"I- I think so…" he responds.

"What did he do to you?"

Roy locks his jaw. "You don't want to know. It wasn't... it wasn't good."

Midna presses a hand to her head, her face covered in sweat, slick with the rush of battle, arms sore, her throat burning, and her fingers still imagining the roughness of the screwdriver in her hands. "Oh my god... I- I..."

"How did you even find me?"

"I heard you."

"Heard me?"

"I was trapped down here, having fallen through the subway system... and I heard your scream echo along the walls. I ran as fast as I could, following the trail."

Roy feels like he's been hit by a Mach truck. Midna _fell?_ Through the subway system above them? What the shit? "Wait, what? What's going on? What's happening above us?"

Midna's gaze is steely, steel bathed in fire. "Sheik brought her forces to Detroit. We've been fighting them in landlocked battle, and she has mortars causing explosions all over the city. Snake, Robin, and I were above ground when the first explosions happened. We've all been separated. Ike and Pit are still at the compound, but I had no idea you were down here... where's Shulk?"

Roy places a hand to his mouth at the horror, the thought of what's going on... and how he's missed all of it by being trapped down in a cellar with Ganondorf taunting his every second, every painful second spent with him. "I- umm... we went our separate ways down here. He's at a thing called The Needle. Something Corrin has ordered him to do..." the thought has never left his mind; there's unfinished business left to cover, but he does not say it aloud.

"The Needle... that tall structure?" Midna frowns. "I think it was still standing last I remember, unless Sheik has had it destroyed by now."

The Syrenet agent turns around, facing Ganondorf's workbench. He had been removed of his Syrenet suit, including his comm, which the cyborg hadn't destroyed, perhaps to keep around and use for something enhanced in the model he was going to be forced into. Roy looks down at his arm, frowning. The two wires running through his pinkie and pointer finger are slightly see through from the cut in the finger, but they no longer hurt. Were they tethered to Ganondorf being alive? Roy doesn't know exactly what to think, but he does know his next course of action. He grabs the comm resting against the cabinet, pressing it into his ear.

He'd expect the signal to be crap, but if it is Ganondorf's lair, there is no way the cyborg gives him terrible connection. Midna approaches him, her presence noted by a wave of color behind him, but he keeps his focus on the static buzzing in his ear before another voice picks up on the other end. That means someone is there next to a radio, guarding the Syrenet connection.

"Hello? Hello?" Pit's panicked voice breaks through, though the panic also has residues of hope smudged throughout as well. "Who's there? Anyone there?"

Roy exhales. Pit is okay. Good. _Good._ "I'm here. It's Roy Arcadia, Pit."

"Oh my god, Roy!" the technician explains. "Where are you? Tell me your location right now. I'm with Snake and the vice president. We're in a special plane, circling the city, trying to get into contact with you guys. The explosions have stopped, the fighting seems to have stopped. Are you okay?"

Robin Wyndel and Snake Karlo, Roy checks them off of his list too. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Listen, I'm down here with Midna, stuck in the sewers. You need to guide Midna out of here."

"Where's Shulk? Was Shulk with you?" this is Snake's voice now coming onto the line.

"We were separated, sir," but Roy does not add more. "I need to go and find him."

Another connection breaks through the mesh, as there's a weird burst of static. "Come on Syrenet squad. This is Charlie Squad commander Ike Forgenson. Do you copy? I repeat, this is Charlie Squad commander Ike Forgenson."

"Ike!" Pit's voice breaks once more. "You're alive!"

Ike Forgenson, checked off of Roy's list, happily. He lets out a sigh. "Listen, I'm down here in the sewers," Ike continues to say, not responding to Pit's burst of happiness. "I'm with a woman here, her name is Samantha. She's trapped down here like I am, but I'm going to give her my comm. If what Roy says is true, then that means Midna will be going too. Pick Samantha up, she needs our help, and frankly we need hers," a pause. "Roy, where do you think Shulk is?"

"A place called The Needle. He went to a thing called the Needle. It's where we were headed before we were separated, Corrin's orders."

"Alright. I am going to join you there. Head there if you can, I'll work my way to you," Ike comments before cutting off.

"Got it," Roy responds.

"We'll keep Midna on track with us," Snake says. "Be careful, Roy."

"Understood..." the redhead looks down at the ground, crouching, before cutting off the signal.

Midna doesn't say anything, perhaps there's nothing _to_ say. Roy runs his hands through the shards of the broken ruby from Ganondorf's head, milling a piece between his fingers, before closing his fist with a glare. Shulk is out there, either about to do someone's bidding - Corrin's - and end up putting the devil right against their backs, or it would be something beneficial and all Ganondorf is doing is blowing smoke. Either way, his best friend is being tampered with here, and someone is damaging him.

Roy stands back up, keeping a shard in his hand. "I'm going to find Shulk. We're going to complete what Corrin set us out to do, and then we're getting the hell out of here."

Midna places a hand against his cheek, and he shudders slightly, eyelids fluttering. "Please be safe. I- I can't lose you too." She's talking about Mac, Roy realizes sadly. She can't lose him like she lost her boyfriend, someone she cared for, someone she went running to save, someone she actually saved.

He nods. "I understand. I'll be safe."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

With that, Roy grits his teeth, giving one last look around his torture cell for the last hour, rubbing his wrists from the bondage. Nothing but pain will linger here, until the day this cell is destroyed, until the last memory of Ganondorf's presence is wiped. He stalks off into the darkness of the sewers tunnels, Midna turning around to watch him leave, before pressing a hand up to her own comm to connect with the Syrenet airwave attached to Pit, Snake, Robin, and Ike's channel. What she does not know, and what Roy does not know, is that this Samantha is Sheik, and that Sheik Braring - Samantha Braring - is going to join the Syrenet team on their plane, the very same team she is destined to destroy... or is she?

Roy stomps through the darkness, through the sewage water.

Ganondorf's last line echoes in his head. " _I was beautiful. I was born to be beautiful..."_

This statement can apply to anyone, but now Roy Arcadia is going to apply it to his employer. To Corrin.

Time to save a man from his own worst enemy: himself.

No pressure.

The hurricane of Detroit has yet to pass over completely, and all it has done so far is leave a path of destruction.

* * *

 **Well, holy hell you guys, that was Chapter #36: Hurricane of Detroit. What an escapade. So much has happened. Remember how I said at the beginning that this would be one of the shorter chapters of the arc? Well, clearly I didn't realize how much content I'd slam into it because god lord we're at 13.5k and I am super crazy. A lot has happened, I know, let's address it. Pit has escaped from the sewers, he is now free. Robin and Snake got back to the compound, asserted their position, and is going to get everyone back together, Pit now joining them, and they have a way out. Ike is going to send Sheik to them, without revealing who she truly is, and he is going to go with Roy to get Shulk, either for good or for worse. Shulk's flashback is another way to tug at the heartstrings... and this last section...**

 **Ganondorf is gone. He is another stepping stone, like Link, like Sheik, and now himself... he's just another pawn thinking he holds all the keys. His role was the fifth character written, so his direction is tried and true - Shulk, Roy, Corrin, and Lucas being planned before him - and he's definitely one of the most fun I've had, with his monologues and archaisms of speaking. He's the italicized voice Roy has been hearing. It is how he has appeared in Shulk's dreams, in Corrin and Robin's visions... he's subtly been making moves, and do they have consequences? Do you believe what he has said about our commander in chief? If he's telling the truth, does Shulk know... and where does that leave Roy?**

 **The fight sequence this chapter is one of my favorites I've ever written, as the next two chapters are primarily action packed as well, and I'll be fine combing those to make sure they're pretty damn perfect by my standards. With all my constant mentioning of the gemstone, and the color amber, it's his ruby that is his Achilles Heel, plus hubris and thinking he's better than anyone else. Another character gone, that makes six out... who else is on the chopping block?**

 **There are officially only four chapters left. The next two chapters are the reasons why Syrenet came into fruition, and my heart will be poured out for you all to see. I cannot wait, I am so stoked. Thank you all so much for reading. Please, please _review,_ I am dying to have some feedback and discourse and dialogue with you all on what has transpired, it'll mean the world to me. I cannot wait for the next chapter, which will be out by the end of the month at the latest, Chapter #37: Eye of the Needle. I hope you all have an amazing day! Love you all! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	37. Chapter 37: Eye of the Needle

**Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #37: Eye of the Needle. Ya'll know what's about to go down, don't lie. Last chapter was longer than I expected it to be, and I actually imagine that this one will be too. This chapter, and the next, #38, are the reasons Syrenet even came into existence... where all that existed was Roy, Shulk, Corrin, and Lucas, and the penultimate thing that happens here... the end is so close you can taste it. Review replies!**

 **CrashGuy01- You think Corrin's the puppet master? What if I decide to throw one last big plot twist and be like - "It's GOD!" - now that'd be mean. You're going to miss Ganondorf? I'll miss writing him, for sure. He got a lot of spotlight for only being in five or six chapters, like Cloud, like Ness, and like Link. Another pawn. You think Shulk's gonna go? He can't be saved or redeemed? And** ** _Pit?_** **I can safely tell you that he's crossed off of the 'could or may die' list. I'm glad you liked the fight scene, as I'm going to really try my hardest with the few fight scenes in this chapter. And** ** _I_** **am learning a lot in Creative Writing, mostly that all my new peers really enjoy my work, which is unbelievably sweet.**

 **SeththeGreat- It's what I do... everyone's a red herring. Corrin may be the biggest baddie? You all are thinking it.** ** _AND_** **that Shulk might be on it? He's Corrin's biggest supporter, but he's actually her biggest dissenter. He's fought her on every decision she's made. And yes, I struggled with having Roy and Midna bring the end of Shulk. He's out of his prime, it's one of his flaws... too scared to do anything.**

 **Derick Lindsay- Thank you, Derick, for leaving such a long review. I'm glad you had the time to do so, I'm honored by it, truthfully. Roy and Midna surely have grown a lot. They're lethal, don't forget, but yeah, they just killed a damn robot. That's skillful. You think Sheik is going to end up doing a terrorist act? So close to the end? I think her time has begun to wind down, actually. Writing the Shulk and Fiora flashbacks have been the best part of this arc so far, to be honest. And you think it's Corrin too... interesting.**

 **I am so excited for this, you guys. You. Have. No. Idea. Enjoy Chapter #37: Eye of the Needle, for Syrenet.**

* * *

The air smells of sulfur and smoke. That is the first thing Shulk notices when he gets hit with the first few rays of sunlight after emerging from the depths of the Detroit sewers. His body reeks of sewage and damp pathways covered in silky moss, and once the aromas of machinations and warfare make their appearance known, he'd rather have his face in a barrel of oil than be down in the sewers a moment more.

He is slightly taken aback from the view atop the Detroit Needle. He has to be at least four to five hundred feet up, overlooking the entire city, and its destruction. From what he could hear underground, it sounded like there were explosions going off, but from besides that, Shulk believes it to be a controlled sort of experiment... not... well, _this._ He cannot say he necessarily feels pity for these people - after all, look what they've done, how much bloodshed they caused, splitting from the union and all. The United States military couldn't deal with one single city? - but still, knocked over buildings are knocked over buildings.

One look at the chaos, and he already knows whose behind it. The rebels; there's no other explanation. Syrenet is followed once again by this simple minded group of people who do not know what's best for them, and all they want to do is kick and scream and bite from the hand that feeds them. Didn't they ever hear the expression not to look a gift horse in the mouth? He'd swear that this is some alien, foreign concept.

But once Corrin gets full access to the Needle, all of her troubles will be washed away, after all.

And it is Shulk's great duty to his country to do this.

It is an impressive structure, he'll admit. He's never been one to understand the fancies or grandeur of architecture, truth be told, but even at this he can stand there and ogle for a moment. The Needle is at least another two hundred, two hundred and fifty feet in the air already - he'd hate to ever have to climb it - and it is physically a needle of sorts, and obelisk of metal, clunked out four by four feet in a sixteen foot cube of metal that points towards the sky.

At the base is a control panel that is about the size of Shulk's bedroom - he _and_ Fiora's bedroom, he has to remind himself, in his head - and there's no exaggeration to this. It's gigantic, covered in buttons and graphs, charts, and symbols that do not make any sense to his already addled brain at all. He pats his pocket. All he has in his pocket is several different flash drives. Placed on them are viruses that'll hack into the Detroit system - and since there clearly seems to be no one monitoring the station, as he walks up to the item unopposed - and eventually give he the controls. Once that motion is complete, a process that'll take fifty minutes to an hour tops, he is given access codes, and he'll call Corrin immediately so she can use this brilliant manmade piece of technology to her advantage.

Shulk likes to imagine that the rebels are a band of ants. Ants can take many targets, they create colonies... they're an impressive force, he'll admit, but even then, they're _just_ ants. Corrin's ever watching eyes are the boot coming to crush them, and all these pitiful ants can do is scramble underneath the shadow of the object that is coming closer and closer to annihilating them all. He's glad to do this.

He digs down deep into his pocket, holding out the first of five flash drives. He never thought about asking Corrin how she acquired the data or numbers - personally, he's probably been told when they're both drowning in tequila shots, but he has a shit memory, so... - but now the time has come where that information is irrelevant. Once he does this, there'll be no being afraid if Syrenet is being followed, or if there will be another attack on a city they're visiting... they can see everything at all times, whenever they want.

A pang of emotion hits him, just for a moment, albeit brief. Chicago happened because Pit and Robin's Automatic Army drones didn't differentiate human objects between birds, clouds, buildings, or anything else; each dot is one moving mass of white, allowing for a force of two hundred or so to just surprise the group unannounced and nearly kill them all. Part of him wants to be furious at the technician for his failure, in which Marth is maimed, he's nearly killed, Mac is nearly killed... Shulk could go on and on.

The commander locks his jaw. It's because of desperate times, just _last_ week, that these things happen. That one U-turn builds another and continues in an everlasting circle of sacrifice, trepidation, fear, and strength.

There's no human error to God, to the Almighty.

There will be no error to Corrin.

Shulk is still holding the flash drive, and he snaps his gaze back to it. He's found it quite odd that he hasn't hear from Roy in awhile. It's been at least an hour and a half since the two split ways, down one dark corridor and the redhead down another. Did he ever make it to Ganondorf? Is he dead?

The commander doesn't necessarily pause at that thought. If Roy Arcadia is gone, as devastating as that may be, Shulk will make sure to march down to Ganondorf's hell and rip him into two like how he killed his wife. Bridging his thoughts to that, with Ganondorf, he's reminded of Lucas. His AI Unit still lays there in a crumpled heap of metal shards, alloy pieces interwoven together, a world clouded in darkness... his practical son who disobeyed, who asked the wrong questions... and all Shulk can do is reflect.

"Serves him right..." Shulk mutters under his breath, even though he could say it as loud as he wanted to do since he is the only one atop the Needle. "You can't just _question_ me. Questioning me is questioning Corrin and-"

He pauses. Getting upset will get him nowhere; he has a mission to complete, after all. Shulk lowers the flash drive back down to waist level, marching forward to the control panel. Simple enough, he knows, is that there's always a power button to turn the control panel on and off. Step one complete; he finds it in the dead center as if there is any sort of way to miss it.

In a row, right next to the main power button, is five slots for USB's. He recalls from Corrin telling him all the way back in her office, before Roy, before Boston, before the dinner party, before everything... the Detroit Needle is operated by inserting five flash drives... and they're simply going to counter each firewall, counter each blockade. Shulk looks at the flash drive as if it could speak back to him.

 _Are you sure you want to do this?_

"Absolutely."

Without hesitating, turning the USB port the correct way, Shulk inserts it into the first of the five connectors. The entire control panel shakes, like a hyperactive kid on way too much sugar, the obelisk, the Needle itself actually, beginning to hum. A low hum, tinnitus, like the ringing in someone's ears, the noise getting louder and louder. It shakes the core of Shulk's soul, half out of terror, the other a euphoria he cannot describe, like the rousing of something sexual, if he has to be that extreme. A burning sensation that is as if he's experiencing the second coming of Christ, or he's standing on the mountaintop watching the transfiguration. What is this feeling? Shulk can only let it overwhelm him, a happiness, a pure elation he hasn't felt since encountering Fiora inside Lucas's AI Unit disk.

The obelisk begins to glow... which Shulk can hardly believe, a gray halo beginning to emanate from the metal.

Shulk is unsure of that purpose - perhaps it is a designing choice to indicate that the Needle is working. The blonde places a gentle hand against the side of the obelisk, furrowing his brow at the fact that the metal is warming up, nothing too extreme, but he can sense it well enough through his fingertips. It's nothing like one of his nightmares, trapped in the slate prison that extended into nothingness forever, at the end Fiora, with her neck exposed, blood dripping down her pale flesh, before she grabs him by the throat, crushing it in one fell close of her fist.

He steps back in amazement, grinning like a madman. This is going to happen.

This isn't like some phantom child with his wife.

This is the future of America being placed in trusting hands.

 _You've really helped me, Shulk._

 _It's my pleasure, Madam President._

 _Do you mind doing one last thing for me?_

 _And what's that?_

 _Transcend._

Fiora and Corrin's voices mesh together into one, a seraph bathed in a heavenly fire, with her own flaming sword, and the key to paradise entrenched in her mandibles.

Shulk lets the glow and the ring consume him.

Paradise everlasting.

* * *

Ike's fingertips leave warm indentions in Sheik's wrist, tangible entanglements of emotion left behind by ghosts. She watches his cobalt hair vanish into the darkness, after speaking into his comm, speaking about a Needle and other things that she's not one hundred percent sure of. However, after letting the cogs spin for a moment, she grips the bluenette's arm before he disappears into the black.

"Did you just say the word needle?" she asks.

He furrows his eyebrows together. "Yeah..." Ike frowns at her. "What about it?"

"Someone said that there's another one of you guys up there?"

"Yeah, Shulk… I believe."

"Don't let him turn the Needle on, Ike."

"Sheik, I-"

"Ike!" she hisses, pressing in deeper, leaving an irritated red mark. He wrenches his arm free, biting down on his lip. Ike nods, and that's that, the man turning on his heel and running off deeper into the sewers, in the opposite direction of freedom.

She runs a hand through her hair, breathing in and out. She cannot believe she's somehow not dead, that her words were enough to keep him at bay. Sheik expects his fist to close around her windpipe after admitting who she really is to him, since it is so farfetched only God can know if its true or not, but Ike's hands stay at his sides after giving her back the envelope containing her birth certificate. Inside the envelope as well is an outline of something called Operation Glass Ceiling, a mandate created exactly three and a half years ago... and _three_ years ago is a date she knows very well... the day Detroit secedes as its own very personal country from the United States, where Corrin, slightly younger, still hawkish and viperish in one, gives full autonomy to the newly declared nation-state.

The specifics are still lost to her, Sheik will admit, but there's enough general information highlighted in the Operation file that it should not be executed, and if this Ike Forgenson fellow is going to head that way, it looks like everything will end up okay. From what the commander had just told her, there's going to be a helicopter coming to get her full of people she's tried to kill once, twice, or three times... and somehow she'll end up escaping unscathed from that as well.

Something itches in the back of her mind, a thought that will not go away. Detroit has fallen in silence, where the hum of a million angry killer bees slows down to be insects trapped in amber. No more explosions. No more screaming. No more gunfire. Something stopped. Either she won, or Detroit won, or there's been a cease fire... Sheik has no idea. She's hit by a sledgehammer of guilt. How many people has she killed in the last year in trying to stop Corrin Etch from becoming a tyrant? Why did she even attack Detroit earlier today, if her goal is to rat out any of the scum that the city contained?

Sheik doesn't know the answer to it, partly not wanting to explore down that avenue because she knows she'll be terrified of the results she finds. After all, it happens quite quickly, from when she opens that package containing her birth certificate, and a document detailing Operation Glass Ceiling, all of her worst suspicions are confirmed. Though the package did not explicitly state who it is from on the box, she receives a letter the first night in Chicago from someone named The Thirteenth Councilor, apparently going by the initials G. P, the last name _Perish,_ the letter reading that her birth certificate came from them, as they've been watching her very carefully and wanted to plant the seed.

Bring Corrin down.

There's many emotions wrapped up in one when she opens the birth certificate. Anger is automatically the first thing that seizes her, and she wants to go and storm into the White House and shoot Corrin dead, kill her _mother,_ who abandoned her, who never checked up on her, and made her live a lie since the fifth day after her birth. Sheik Braring has been living in the lie for so long that she goes by Sheik, despite knowing the truth. Whatever Samantha Gladwell that may have existed no longer truly does, in fact, that person never existed.

The entirety of her mission started when Syrenet's plans are announced a bit after the fallout of Detroit. Corrin says it's a way to get the country back on their feet after such a devastating loss, and it sounds genuine, but Sheik doesn't trust it. When the blend transitioned from peaceful protesting, to loud and sometimes vigilante protesting, to then _violence,_ she cannot remember; its been too long of a struggle, of a fight. Abandonment issues only push the project, now, but with her single moment down in the sewers, thinking about the damage she's caused... she's _screwed_ over so many people and it all comes crashing down on her this very moment.

With her talk that she just had with Ike, she's expecting him to sound as evil as Corrin, to sound so masterfully twisted and turn the way of truth into deceit... but all he is, is well... Ike Forgenson is a solider following orders without knowing what those orders really mean, and she feels pity. She's been attacking blind, frightened sheep. It is not exactly what she would call a victory. Perhaps there is one or two people on the Syrenet crew that know the truth and are letting it happen, as if they feel they're stuck between a rock and a hard place... but there's no time to think about it now.

That thought makes her wander over to Midna.

 _Midna Nye._

God, that's a name she hasn't thought about since the Chicago fight - a week ago, now - and with all that has happened, a week's time is quite extreme. Does Midna know the truth? Sheik isn't sure anymore. If Sheik is indicted, Midna could very well too, since they two had actual vocal contact in a tenure where the redhead knew the rebels were in Chicago and didn't say anything, but there's a lot of leeway here. Sheik knows what one of her friend's fatal flaws is, and that's an undying suspension of disbelief. Despite knowing what has been on the news, Midna Nye is not going to be lead to believe or act worried that danger being in the same vicinity as the poor thing the danger befalls upon necessarily means it _will_ happen.

Is Midna dead?

That pings Sheik's heart, for a second. The redhead may be laying dead somewhere down in the sewers, and she has no idea whether or not her FBI friend is even alive. Another innocent life, since all these Syrenet employees do is defend their institution so well, like it is a superhero film or their favorite band, though every group has supporters like that in some capacity. She and Midna meet purely by chance, at some hotel bar, Midna's seeing friends, Sheik is visiting her father - it's the lie poking through, Sheik is visiting... _Samantha_ is visiting Sal, her not-father, her guardian that did not conceive her... - and the two women end up at the hotel bar downing shots of Jack and Coke together, talking about school. Sheik is still in the middle of getting her Law degree, and Midna is about to embark on some training course into the FBI, which leaves goosebumps all up and down Sheik's arms.

The two trade numbers, talking back and forth, eventually coming up with those stupid nicknames for each other: Ocarina and Amber. Ocarina? How did that even come to be a thing? Sheik still, after all these years, hasn't looked up what the hell an ocarina even is. Sheik messages Midna for the first time in several years after Oklahoma City and the downfall that happened there, acting all innocent, trying to fish, and the two meet up for coffee in Boston... neither know what they're really for until they see each other _again,_ the next day, at Link's compound, and Midna ties the pieces together.

Sheik is the Midwestern rebel leader, and she's - Midna - now a cohort to a criminal. Great.

A thought like that can bring someone to their knees, without even realizing it.

While standing in the exact same spot before Ike vanishes into the sewers, clinging onto an extra copy of the documents given to her by the mysterious G.P, and the documents proven to be authentic, Sheik gets struck by a lightning fast idea.

The future is uncertain for her, but she can make sure that Corrin Etch gets dug an early grave.

She pulls out her phone, miraculously it isn't dead, Sheik thought it would be by now. There's no service, or Wi-Fi, which she does expect, but all she has to do is find somewhere else in the sewers with a hole through the concrete above to the outside world... that'll have to grant her some signal. This can go very well, or very bad, but Sheik knows one thing is for certain.

If she can hit SUBMIT, she's going to go _viral,_ whether people believe her or not.

Frankly, she doesn't care. She wants to do this to get it off of her chest, to clear her head, to clear her thoughts, to simply _get it out to the public_. She gives it less than an hour before Corrin finds a way to counter-maneuver out of whatever damage will begin to being caused.

She goes over to the camera option, turning on the backlight for the phone, swiping the screen for the 'video' selection, before hitting START, the camera facing her.

"Good afternoon, America. If we haven't had the chance to meet, I'm Sheik Braring. If we have had the chance to meet, by now you've either jumped away from this video, or you're going to sit and watch to see what will happen now. My name will be familiar to all of you. I am the singular person in charge of the Midwestern rebel force against the technological and political organization that is Syrenet. I am the orchestrator of the attacks on Oklahoma City, Chicago, and now, with live coverage, the nation-state, Detroit..." she begins to walk forward some down one path, a halcyon pool of light burrowing into the murky pitch and shift below, the sounds of squishing hitting her ears. "I am what many of you would call a terrorist... and that _I_ am, I can admit that truth..."

There's no turning back... God, Sheik's palms are sweating.

"However, you've all been lied to. By me. I am not just Sheik Braring. My name is Samantha Gladwell. That last name might be familiar to you," she swallows heavily, licking her lips. She's only ever seen Cloud on TV, unlike being in the same vicinity and nearly killing Corrin. The dad she has never met. "That last name belongs to the missing New York Senator Cloud Gladwell... the husband to the president of the United States, Corrin Etch. I am Corrin and Cloud's daughter, named Samantha Gladwell. If you've never heard of me, that is because I was put up for adoption nearly immediately after my birth..." she can only imagine the look on the president's face, seeing this from whatever crevice she is hiding in now.

Sheik steps into the light from above, a pillar of freedom, an escape from the bleak hell, digging into another of her pockets. It's the birth certificate she showed Ike. "This is the birth certificate from the hospital I was born in. It's authentic, it's real... it's not a fake. I'm _their_ daughter..." another pause. "I know, how could anything I'm saying be even taken seriously after all I have done. You have the proof of who I am, and I am even admitting to all of you what I have done. I claim responsibility for it all."

A deep sigh. A long, _deep_ sigh.

"I lied to you just now. Someone else has been lying to you a lot longer than I have. Try four years, almost about to have an election in November, and this could potentially turn into an era of this person. I am talking about the president, Corrin Etch, who also heads the Syrenet program, in which my groups have been attacking," Sheik scratches her head. "With me is a document detailing something called Operation Glass Ceiling, a plan that Corrin uses with the Needle of Detroit, a satellite like device, that if pushed to its absolute limits, and used in the wrong hands of power, can see anything and everything they want. Our president is using Syrenet as a cover-up, as a ruse, to get this mission done. Whatever help she has offered with Syrenet may be true, that I don't know, but she's been keeping this hidden agenda away from us all, doing it in the shadows. That needs to stop."

She leans into the camera. "You need to listen to me. You need to wake up. Corrin is going to control us all if we aren't careful, and especially if we do not do something about it..." and then Sheik takes a pause. Although what she has said is enough to get a few heads turning, she's got to add something honest. Something truthful. She's always thought about it, between moments in the shower where she rests her head against the cold tile, or simply waiting a stop light... there's got to be end of the road for her with the violence she has caused, with the people she has killed, whether it be by her hand or her orders, and Sheik knows that justice is going to catch up with her. "I am going to turn myself in when this is all said and done. When Corrin is stopped... I'm going to allow myself to be given a life sentence for the acts of terrorism I've committed. My wrongdoings were in an attempt to try and expose the president for what she's done, but I have fallen from grace myself..."

A shudder encases her spine, tightening her muscles, tightening her body into one solidified, chilled mass of flesh and bone.

"Please, if you've gotten this far, listen to me. I'm begging you. We, the people, of this country, have the power to get Corrin Etch out of office _before_ she becomes the office. We must do this. Please... with me, we can overthrow an empire. I am coming clean because Corrin needs to come clean. This is Samantha Gladwell. Thank you for your time..."

She presses the end recording button, wanting to collapse down into the murky waters of the sewer system and stay there forever. Let the maggots eat at her until she's a carcass of vile black erosion, an emotion of distraught and bitterness. Sheik exhales a shaky breath. It is true, what she just finished saying, about turning herself in. If caught, there is no way she is going to be left unscathed by a judge, and certainly no new enacting president would pardon her. She's no martyr. She's a villain bringing down another villain, villainous in her approach.

Sheik holds her phone back up in her hand. The recording is four and a half minutes long. Four and a half minutes of the unedited, unbiased truth. The facts that she knows are indisputable. An entire three years of her life summarized in four and a half minutes.

There's a sound on the horizon, it sounding to Sheik the whirr of helicopter blades. Ike did mention there'd be a helicopter with the vice president, the FBI director, and another Syrenet employee on board. Her way out of Detroit. Her way to Corrin, once the nasty business at the Needle is dealt with. Her way to the end, with a jail cell, and a wall of cold, unmoving iron bars.

She closes her eyes.

Being a harbinger of destruction has never felt more rewarding than in this moment.

* * *

 _Rain pitter patters off of tree leaves above Shulk's head, the mud getting soupy and sludgy, the soles of his dress shoes sinking in deep, making squelch noises whenever he shifts his body. He is holding an umbrella over his head, despite being under the trees hiding he and the tombstone away from the sky's ever watching, currently upset, eye. Most of the other funeral occupants have left, and it's just the renegade soldier with his renegade deceased wife, and someone else sitting on the outskirts, writing in a journal, or at least that's what Shulk believes the person is doing._

 _Why does it have to be raining? Isn't that the cliché, after all? Where it rains at a funeral? Shulk seems to think so, but he doesn't have the power to do anything about it. What were the last words he told his wife?_

 _'I love you'... he whispers, hands clinging to flesh, fingers clinging to sex, and emotions clinging to each other. Her words are hushed down his spine, elbows crooked, hair splayed over a shoulder, the curtains drawn away to let the sunlight in._

 _It is at their dinner, their last dinner, where neither person even ate a thing. Shulk lowers the umbrella from above his head. He doesn't need it, the trees are enough. He holds the umbrella in his right hand, letting it drip down on his shoes as he squelches in the mud. The person hanging on the outskirts isn't truthfully on the outskirts, but standing right next to him with an umbrella of their own, hands holding a book and pencil, writing in it, their silver hair a spot of color between the brown, black, and muted gray of the storm clouds. Shulk thinks what they're doing is stupid, but that's not something you necessarily say to the vice president of the United States._

 _Vice President Robin Wyndel is the last person to stay by the commander's side. He doesn't think he's ever held more than a three second conversation with her that didn't involve an order and 'Yes ma'am' thrown back, which is to the extent of their talks. However, now, she's lingering, but he's appreciative of the company. He's rather relieved, but he'll never be caught speaking it aloud, that Corrin is not with him. Urgent matters at the White House, such as the separation of a city named Detroit now being its own nation, beg for her. Robin says she has nowhere to be, as this sort of thing is not her strong suit, and if the president needs her, she'll hasten to the other silverette's defense._

 _She finishes writing in her journal - he actually hasn't asked her its purpose yet - and rights herself away from the tree, placing the journal and pencil back in her coat pocket. A solitude of peace washes over her, for a moment, the vice president closing her eyes, before sighing in exultation, standing side by side with Shulk._

 _For the first time all day, he actually gets emotional. "She wanted to be buried on a hilltop somewhere. With the sun and clouds overlooking her," he sniffles. It may be from crying, or maybe he has a cold... he's not sure. "But her parents wanted her to be buried back in her home town. She fought them on it for years, but when her mother was passing away, she agreed."_

 _"So here we are in Gettysburg," Robin responds. Fiora Roberts is from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and now she rests._

 _"So here we are..." Shulk says, looking down at his hands._

 _"She was a good woman, Shulk."_

 _"I know. You don't have to say that."_

 _He looks away for a moment - well, technically not away, but enough to change perspective - but this 'away' is rather a bit upwards at her tombstone... Mother, wife, servant of God, Fiora Roberts, 2051-2093. He's not reading what's engraved, but he's looking deeper into the grave, down under the dirt and the topsoil, and the few scattered bouquets of roses. He's looking at her corpse._

 _She's bathed all in white, gilded ivory, perfume lacing her curly blonde hair. It is as if Fiora is sleeping, and that she is, somewhere away from here, this scorched and bitter Earth. She's frolicking about in rose gardens, with ivy lacing brick walls, their daughter clinging to her heels, laughing; she's laughing, Fiora's laughing and it is the happiest she will ever be. Her neck is sown back up, but there's scars, there's stitching, she looks like a puppet. All the blood has been washed away to the best of its ability, and buried next to her is a box with their daughter, but Shulk knows it's just a mangled carcass at this point... but it is so morbid._

 _A tear falls from his face._

 _"What were you writing down in that journal?" he asks._

 _Robin rocks back on her heels of her shoes, having decided to wear flats to the cemetery, since high heels in rain and mud does not speak any language other than disaster. "It's a journal where I describe the funeral scene for the person. I wrote one for Fiora, trying to make it as positive as I can."_

 _"Why do you write these?"_

 _"For every funeral I attend as vice president, I write them so I can remember them in the end. Whenever my tenure as vice president ends, and perhaps president should I ever run... I want to compile them into a book. Memoirs of the Fallen."_

 _"So, does that mean when I eventually die before you or Corrin's term ends, I'll go into the book, too?"_

 _"Don't talk like that," she warns him._

 _"You can't say it's a possibility."_

 _"Shulk, please..."_

 _The commander looks up at the sky, clearing his throat. "I've never been a religious man, Vice President, but... if it's real... is Fiora suffering?"_

 _"No, Shulk, she isn't," Robin responds right away, placing a hand on his shoulder. "She'll be up in heaven with your child... and they'll be happy. Free from pain. Free from sickness. Free from... free from the ailments of this world."_

 _"You think she's in heaven?"_

 _"I am for sure she is."_

 _Shulk doesn't quite know what comes over him next, but he finds himself curled up in Robin's arms, sobbing. Sobbing harder than he ever has in his entire life, tears staining his cheeks as he wails, screams, truthfully. His voice is muffled by her raincoat, but the emotion is enough to cause the vice president to quiver to the core. He curses out all he can, cursing out Corrin, Syrenet, Detroit, rebels, secession... anything he can find to point the finger at._

 _When they retract, Shulk has let a bit of himself go down into the grave. That's HIS family buried down there, in one pile._

 _"I want revenge, Robin," he says, addressing her by her first name. They aren't on speaking terms like that, but for now, he's going to change the rules because he wants to._

 _"Be careful what you wish for, Shulk," she warns him again. "You go around life doing that and-"_

 _"I mean it," the commander adds rather forcefully, turning to her. "Someone stole a future from me. I want them gone. I want their future gone. And I don't care how we do it. Someone killed my wife. There's no worse pain than that."_

 _He stalks off, having let out his pent up emotion, and all Robin can do is turn around in the mud, covered in a black soot sludge, and watch him go, shaking her head in dissent._

 _"If he only ever knew..." she whispers to herself, the rain drowning out much of the sound._

 _Then, Robin closes her eyes, paying one last token of respect for the dead, and the future they could have had._

 _The rain stays in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania for an entire week._

 _The rain has stayed in Shulk's heart for three years._

* * *

The first thing Roy notices when he manages to climb to the top of the Needle Tower is the sound. A low hum that sits in his eardrums and stays there, a reverb along a shallow path of crushed glass, where he can sense the vibrations in his skull. It's been a half hour since he left Midna, since he spoke to the remaining survivors of the Detroit fallout, and now it is time to ascend to where the devil himself could possibly await. He takes his gun, he takes his Syrenet armor, but he's not wearing it. He needs to be as docile as he can be, try and keep Shulk calm, and that they need to shut everything down. There's no way any chances can be taken. If the Needle is never activated, there's only one thing Corrin can do, if Ganondorf's words are true, and that's reveal her master plan, reveal the truth.

Half of the redhead's mind is focusing on something else he is trying to not address. That Shulk already knows... that he's _okay_ , with the idea of what he's doing, or about to do, and that thought scares himself even worse. He hasn't really thought about what he'll do then... to get the commander to stop. He isn't so sure he's even capable of beating Shulk. The man is at least fifteen years older than he is, has more combat experience than he, Midna, Mac, Marth, and Ike combined... if it comes down to a gun shootout, Roy isn't wanting to really say he's going to rely on his reflexes for this.

He pushes open a heavy door at the top of a staircase, a winding staircase that spirals high into the heavens, a stream of sunlight pouring down from the top. Glimmers of hope and trickles of fear clash together as Roy makes the climb, his heart beating in his chest so fast it could power a car. One hand is constantly resting on the butt of the pistol in his back pocket. He debates having it out or not, but decides halfway through... no, he needs it to be front and center. Shulk's erratic behavior and eccentric movements have always spooked Roy, but he never said anything. They're copartners, cooperators in a mission... when does one countryman have to betray another countryman?

When Roy reaches the top, pushing open the door, it's when he hears the noise. A mix between the sound of a hummingbird's wings flapping so fast that the human eye cannot proceed to see how fast they flap, and the hum of static from a TV, blaring, jagged lines filling his vision. He's taken aback, momentarily, by being so up close to the obelisk, seeing it right in front of him, the Needle of Detroit. It's impressive, intimidating... and can be the reason America is destroyed. He's stuck in confusion at the glow surrounding the base of the Needle, the metal spike into the sky having what looks to be a circle of iodine-colored light drawn around it. Roy makes a step forward, one hand holding the door, and he slips forward some.

He looks down, frowning. The ground isn't concrete, but a more slippery metal. It's kind of hard to walk on, he notices, which could mean that there truly isn't meant to be anyone up here. A thing everyone can see, but no one can have. Then, Roy spots _him._ Blonde hair, tall, standing in front of central console, and what looks like four USB's inserted upwards towards the clouds, the bands of sulfur red and warzone gray blotting out a bit of the sunlight. It's Shulk, already in the process of utilizing the Needle. A chill runs through Roy's body. _What if Corrin already has the power? How do we shut it down?_

The Syrenet agent makes the final step onto the platform, the door behind him slamming shut. It gets Shulk's attention, by the prick of his ears upwards... someone's joined him. The commander turns, and it's like a scene out of a Midwestern shootout; it wouldn't be all that much of a surprise should a tumbleweed blow by suddenly.

"Shulk!" Roy yells. He's not so sure why he's yelling, the humming noise isn't deafening.

If Shulk is surprised to see Roy, the commander's face shows no betrayal of emotion... almost, if even possible, _emotionless._ He's sweating, blonde hair matted to his forehead, gun out, laying on the console. Roy keeps his gun in his hands, but pointed slightly downwards. The two metal rods still inserted into Roy's hands sting somewhat, but the blood has dried, and he can move his fingers somewhat freely in a way that doesn't hurt him.

"You made it," Shulk says, without a single trace of happiness, sadness, or any some such other feeling in his voice. "Where's Ganondorf?"

"Dead. Destroyed..."

"Good. When this was done, I was going to go and deal with him myself. You saved me the trouble," Shulk eyes Roy's hands, seeing the glow of something coppery when the pale flesh moves at a certain angle. "What took you so long?"

"He- he had his fun with me. But he's gone, he's finished, and he won't harm us any longer," Roy declares, trying to pump up his voice a bit.

"Why's your gun drawn? We're safe up here."

Shulk knows, and Roy knows that the commander _knows_ why the redhead has his gun drawn. There's no other explanation for the sudden shift of tone, for the sudden shift in tenseness, where the blonde's muscles lock together, fingers twitch, and one elbow readily places itself down on the control panel. Roy follows Shulk's eye movements expertly, it's part of the FBI training kicking in.

"When I was down there, with Ganondorf... he said some things," Roy begins, his mouth drying up. This is so not the way he wants to have this conversation, where it feels like they're on the same playing field, but Shulk has all the power, truth be told, a high ground, and nothing is going to stop Shulk from killing Roy right there, atop the Needle of Detroit, and letting Corrin get her way. He has to test the waters, to prove if things are true...

"What things?" Shulk tilts his head back, eyes glinting, a diamond stare with nothing but coldness, an inquiry, a cat watching a mouse... and tension seizes Roy's veins, pain flashing in his fingers.

"Syrenet is not what we thought it was. That Corrin is just using it to get to _that,_ " he urges the gun forward in gesture at the Needle. "With that she could see anything and everything! She would be a dictator, knowing what all of her citizens are saying, thinking, _wanting..._ we can't give her that power!"

There's a certain look in Shulk's eyes, perhaps a glazed over madness, and then the blonde rears his head back. Roy is expecting a laugh to come from the commander, but there's a nothingness, a static of charged air, electrified air. The commander lowers his head back down, pointing a finger at Roy, which is starting to curve. "You're going to believe his word? The word of a murderer? The word of the same thing which killed my wife?"

The redhead closes his eyes for a moment, but solace cannot be granted to him at this time. There's one final nail in the coffin he's about to implement. "Ganondorf killed Fiora on Corrin's orders, Shulk. Because she knew about the Needle and was going to-"

"LIAR!" Shulk screams, grabbing the gun and aiming it directly down the sight at Roy. He knows the chamber is lined to his heart should Shulk squeeze the trigger. "You're lying! Ganondorf did it on his own! He's just trying to throw the blame on her!"

"I believe him, Shulk! I don't know why, but I believe him. I think Corrin issued Fiora's death and gave him the charge to do so. I-"

Shulk squeezes the trigger, and Roy expects pain to overflow his body. The bullet soars by him, just a bit over the left shoulder. The blonde lowers the gun further, and this angle is directly in line with Roy's midriff. The gaze in the blonde's eyes is murderous beyond belief, pointed in full-fledged rage, and any light surrounding his body is sucked up into the sulfurous sky. "That was a warning shot," Shulk threatens, clenching his teeth. "Say the shit you just said again and I'm gonna shoot you in two."

"Shulk, please..." Roy makes a step forward, but this time, Shulk shoots a warning shot at the redhead's feet.

"That's far enough."

Roy is feeling worse and worse as the seconds pass. What's he supposed to do? He throws his hands up in the air out of frustration. Things are starting to get clearer and clearer for him... there's only one way he's going to be able to get off of the Needle, back into Snake's territory, and with the project ceased.

Shulk has to die. He wants to avoid it, as best he can.

"Just... just _think_ for a moment," Roy shouts, but he's not necessarily shouting. "Try and be rational about this. Corrin may be a great president, but we _cannot_ let her have this power. She can't. You can't just allow this to happen either. You have the ability to stop it! We aren't going to lose if we don't do this, Shulk, we can always fight-"

"Let me point something out to you!" Shulk yells. "We've already _fucking_ lost, Roy! Look around you!" he screams, throwing his arms wide, gesticulating to the whole area of Detroit. The city is on fire, multiple, _multiple_ buildings collapsed over, who knows how many dead, an entire new country brought to its knees by a single group of vengeful people who had one army with one purpose... hatred and destruction. "The rebels came after us! They attacked another sovereign country because we were here. We _have_ to do this. Otherwise Syrenet never will succeed, we will always be hunted and rooted out like animals."

"There is no Syrenet, Shulk. There never has been. It's just a means to an end!"

Why can't he just see? Why can't he just try and conceptualize it for a moment that he's been lied to his entire career? That everything he's done for Corrin up until this point has not been for anything good... how is he so blind to the truth? What Roy notices, but doesn't mention, is that Shulk confirms his worst suspicions... that what Corrin is planning to do with the Needle is _true,_ as apparently it is the last resort, that Syrenet has lost, and they're backed into a corner. So, somewhere, somehow, that automatically means that Corrin is granted omnipotence over the United States...

"Do you have any idea how stupid you sound?" Shulk cocks his head, almost likewise tilting the gun barrel.

"Corrin is just using you," Roy argues. "She'll use you for what she wants and she'll get rid of you all the same."

"Never!" the blonde declares triumphantly, lifting his head back up cockily, the diamond gaze strong, proud, and boastful. "Corrin would never kick me to the curb. I'm the greatest ally she's got. I am her biggest supporter. She would never, not after all I've done for her."

Roy gets goosebumps on his arms. What exactly is he talking about? The redhead's mind jumps down the rabbit hole without a second thought, thinking of coverups and sudden disappearances... and the air seems to get thicker, filled with smoke, Roy choking slightly on the poisonous air. "What are you talking about?"

"The people I've killed," Shulk says, still keeping the gun trained on Roy. "I murdered Cloud in an alleyway because she told me to. That night we were out for drinks, the day before the Chicago meeting... I killed her husband because he was in her way, trying to shut down the Syrenet program because it was unhealthy for her. The Syrenet program is our future... and here he is trying to destroy it," and, then, as an afterthought, as if it is something to be gleeful about, "His body is somewhere in the Hudson river. I drove to New York before we went to Chicago, dumped his body in the river, and drove back. When they find him, it'll look like a suicide."

There were a lot of answers that Roy expected to hear, but that is not one of them. Everything slows down to a single second of time, mind calculating, mind recalculating... the mind analyzing; Shulk Roberts murdered Cloud Gladwell, Corrin's husband, the First Husband, a famous senator, thrown in the river of his own state... because she told him to. He always wondered who would've had incentive to kill Cloud, or a reason why to, besides strike fear in the Syrenet workers, or give Corrin grief, but never from one on the inside. "That's what her phone call was about..." he whispers. "That's why I couldn't find you."

"Mac Sarasota? Remember him?" Shulk gloats, the gun slightly wavering now in his grip. "I slit his throat in the very same bathroom you brushed your teeth in this morning. Wrote in his blood the message on the mirror. I killed him because Corrin told me that he was planning on lying to everyone about the reason we were here, trying to sabotage the mission so we couldn't be here today. I waited until he was out of the shower, grabbing him naked... and I made him fear, before ending him. I erased the camera footage. It was almost child's play. You all were sleeping and I killed him."

Roy's world is shaking, as if he's being tossed around by Titans and being the ball in pinball where all the bumpers are moons in the galaxy. "You- you killed him? Not a rebel?"

"Done to make it look like one."

"To give an excuse for this Needle..." Roy's stomach is starting to churn, as if someone has stabbed him with a blade belly deep and is twisting it in his intestines, till all of the foul offal spills out.

"We didn't need an excuse, Roy."

"You murdered one of our own!" the redhead yells. Yes, he knows that Mac was not his most fervent supporter, but in the times where it truly mattered, they had each other's backs, they defended one another, despite what their personal lives may have brought into the fold. "You killed Mac and you don't even care."

"He was never one of us," Shulk shouts. "He was never one of us! Just like you," the commander spits, actually spitting onto the chromed platform. "You're still the new kid to everyone; you don't matter. He wasn't one of us anyways; he was going to betray us. He was going to-"

"He found out about Corrin's plans for the Needle, Shulk," Roy screams back, wanting to tear out his hair. "He found out about Fiora. She had you kill him so no one else would know. She lied to you _again_." For some reason, the redhead is consumed by anger, but he knows he should be. One of their own being killed by someone he trusted, all based on a lie to cover someone else's tracks... and then to act innocent about it all, confused on why someone mentioned Glass Ceiling. Glass Ceiling is mentioned because someone - one of only two people who even know of its existence - who's a part of it killed him... how Roy never made that mental connection, he'll never know.

"Stop saying her name!" the commander takes an enraged step forward, his hands clenching around the butt of the pistol. "You don't deserve to say her name! You never loved her. She was never _yours_."

"Do you think she'd be happy, knowing you've done all this? Defending her stalwart killer?"

"Corrin had _nothing_ to do with the murder of my wife, Roy! She was mine, never anyone else's. Like Ness was never yours."

Things come to a screeching halt. Roy's breath hitches in his throat. Why did Shulk mention his old AI Unit all of a sudden? He hasn't thought about Ness in eons, which brings shame to his mind, truthfully... but that Ness Morrison, in his teenage sarcastic-like programming, and smart ass personality is all he has in Boston, doesn't betray his confidence or trust, and all of a sudden... gone. He's in the hospital, on his last day of recovery, still bitter and mad at Ike and the rest of the crew for never visiting him, when the technician tells him that Ness is shut down due to a technical glitch, a technical glitch that he is unable to recover from, and the AI Unit personality of Ness Morrison is retired permanently... why would Shulk have a reason to say Ness's name? Unless there's an emotion present: guilt.

"What does Ness have to do with any of this?"

"Because I destroyed him!" Shulk roars out, louder than any of the statements he's said so far. "He went snooping, and he dug too deep. Corrin told me to end his line immediately."

"I was told Ness had programming troubles and voluntarily chose to be deactivated..." Roy turns his hands into fists. Corrin has messed with plenty of things to cover up his tracks, but Ness is an actual friend to Roy, an actual ally, and she's going to go and mess with this? Not happening, not on his watch.

"I shot his disk in three. I did it when no one was at the compound, and then I crushed the pieces under my hand. Corrin told me to, and I did it." Flashing red anger consumes Roy, and he wants to leap at the blonde and rip his throat out, rip it out into pieces the same way Ganondorf killed Fiora, ripping her throat to shreds. Shulk is a monster, but monsters can still be saved, there's still something to salvage. "I'm a good soldier, Roy! I've always been a good soldier. You want to know why? A good soldier follows orders, Roy. It's what I was born to do. You listen to your higher-ups, and you do not question them; that's not our position. I'm a good solider, dammit, and no one is going to deny me that!" he yells again, shoving the gun back in Roy's direction.

The redhead lifts his head up, almost daringly, extending a hand. "We can turn this all around, Shulk. It doesn't have to end like this. Come on. Take out the USB's. Shut it down. Don't let Corrin win. After all she's done to you... you deserve better."

"It can't be stopped, Roy. I can't stop it. Once the process begins, I have to wait until it's finished. Once I am done, Corrin will be waiting for my call. I will be given an access code, and once I give it to her, the power of the Needle is hers... _forever._ "

Roy stomps on the ground, in actual childish frustration. Of course it is going to be one of those situations, where it has to either finish or not. That means there's only one other option left to consider, the worst of them all... _shit._ "Fuck..." Roy swears, squeezing his eyes shut.

Shulk tilts his neck, giving a cheeky grin. "That's right, Roy. There's only one other option left for you to consider. Either you turn around, and we let this process finish. Or, you try to stop it, and I kill you. I don't want to hurt you Roy."

"Like the way you didn't want to hurt Ness, Mac, and Cloud?" the redhead's tone is mocking.

"I've done what I've done to preserve the sanctity of this nation. What have you done, Roy? All you've done since joining Syrenet is get captured by men who are better than you, tortured, and someone saves you from their clutches," and then Shulk sneers. An actual sneer, and for some reason, he's - Roy, that is - struck by a chord. This hurts, full of disappointment. "You're just weak, Roy. You're a coward."

Rational thought flies out the window at what is said next. Roy looks down at his feet, locking his jaw, then back at up at the Alpha commander. "So are you. You're a coward, Shulk. You didn't even kill Fiora's murderer. And you want to defend the one who authorized it. You didn't save Fiora. All you did was nothing, you did _nothing-_ "

The next word out of Roy's mouth isn't the blonde's name, or anything scathing. It's a scream, a scream drenched in agony as Shulk squeezes the trigger on the gun, a bullet flying over from his position into the redhead's shoulder, hitting just a few centimeters below the collarbone on his left side. Roy goes stumbling back, yelling in pain; it's not the first time he's been shot, or shot at, but there's no way to condition your body to it. White bursts of agony and pain flood his vision, a sensory overload of hurt, desperation, and even panic. He didn't expect Shulk to take another shot, even though he just said his wife's name again, despite getting told not to.

He waits for the next shot, the shot that'll end him, but as he begins to stumble back, he sees regret actually flash across Shulk's features... as if he is truly pained that he just had to shoot him in the shoulder. However, that next bullet never comes. Shulk's expression of pain turns back into a withering glare, Roy furrowing his brow in confusion - a myriad of emotions up on the Needle... Detroit is a looking glass of empathy - for the change is quite sudden. He knows, however, the reason why, when he stumbles back once more into something hard and bulky that isn't the door to the staircase shaft.

"Are you okay?" Ike asks him, the commander of Charlie Squad standing in the staircase doorway.

Roy cannot believe what he's seeing. Yes, he knows that he notified the bluenette where's he headed, and that Ike would join him, but it is an entire different experience of actually having a saving grace appear. The redhead shakes his head somewhat delayed, still woozy and taking the aftereffects of a bullet grazing his shoulder. He presses a hand to the wound, copper starting to stain his fingers. "Yeah... I'm okay..."

"Stay back," the other man instructs, rather firmly, putting out an arm to block Roy from the circular surface of the Needle. "Let me handle this."

The redhead scrambles back into the corner, his gun now dropped over by the corner where he's shot. There are droplets of blood dotting the ground from where he stood. Ike takes Roy's place, and Shulk has his hand still on the gun, still aimed in the center, now at the other commander.

"Ike..." Shulk says, regarding his comrade with as much respect as he could muster.

"Don't try and start," Ike interrupts the blonde, placing a hand up. "I heard it all from behind the door. Lyn amplified what I couldn't discern. I know the truth, Shulk. The Needle is not good, and Corrin is just using you. That you've murdered our friends... please, don't do this, Shulk."

"Great. Ganondorf got to you too, huh?"

The bluenette furrows his eyebrows together. "Who's Ganondorf?" then, with a shake of his head. "I met someone named Samantha Gladwell, Corrin's daughter. Her daughter given away for adoption. She had a birth certificate and everything. She also had plans of something called Operation Glass Ceiling... Shulk, it's all out of the bag. Corrin is-" a slight hesitation, "She's evil, and you know it."

"What?" Shulk's voice cracks. "You're going to try and make me see the light? Try and sway me? Roy already tried. Roy already tried, and he _failed!_ "

"I'm not going to try and save you," Ike shakes his head, making a tut noise with his tongue. " _He's_ going to force you."

"He's?" the blonde frowns, not knowing who's being reference here.

The commander of Charlie Squad extends his free hand out, the other placed on his own weapon, and falling from his fingertips to the ground are circular bits of metal colored in different shades of gray, circular fragments that clink like quarters onto a sidewalk. Roy's eyes widen at the sight, and Shulk takes a step back. Those are the bits and pieces of an AI Unit's disc, the handiwork of Pit's immediately recognizable. Those can't be Ness's, Roy knows. That means theirs only one possible possession.

"Lucas," Ike says brazenly.

"Where- where did you find these?" Shulk looks like he's seen a ghost, his skin going whiter and whiter by the second, the gun in his hand visibly _shaking._ Roy frowns. Why is he all of a sudden so distraught?

"In the sewers," a run of the mill fact, and the truth. "Where you dropped them, after you crushed Lucas's digital soul into oblivion because he was questioning you and Corrin. Questioning Operation Glass Ceiling," the latter part is added rather coldly, no life to Ike's voice, and then another statement, ran off very matter of fact. "Lyn analyzed Lucas's last recorded moments, the conversation the two of you had. You destroyed him, and just like what you admitted, about Cloud, about Mac, and about Ness... all Lucas did was ask too many of the right questions and get too close to the truth."

"You can't prove any of that."

"Lyn has audio recordings of you speaking, Shulk."

"Not if you're killed. No one will hear them if you're dead!"

"You can't beat me in a fight, Shulk. You're not strong enough," Ike says.

Roy knows that in a fist fight, Ike has Shulk beaten hands down. Ike is a good half foot taller, bulkier, more muscle mass, and good probably fight damn well for a boxer or MMA fighter if the career path went down a different way than the government. The other commander is in good shape too, but age could eventually start to catch up with him, and compared to a spry, and in his late twenties Ike Forgenson... there's no comparison.

"You don't know that."

Shulk reaches for his gun. Thinking fast, Ike grabs his from his own pocket, but instead of shooting it, he throws it at the blonde. Firing a bullet can be a lot quicker, yes, but at such a high height, and with the fact that in a melee, Ike can take Shulk no problem... he's going to lower the stakes down to his level. He is not going to try something different and leave it to chance. One gun hits the other and it flies from Shulk's hand, however, neither go in a direction well sought after. The two weapons fly to different sides of the chromed platform. One of the bullets from a pistol fires, ricocheting off of the ground. Roy ducks under the bullet, it having headed in his direction, it embedding into the doorframe where his head once had been. Before Shulk can react, Ike has rammed himself into the blonde, both men falling back.

Roy scrambles on his hands and knees after one of the guns while the commanders leave at it in a brawl. Ike is pressing one of his hands on Shulk's face into the chrome plating, growling. The blonde underneath him kicks upwards, striking the bluenette in the groin. It is enough of a strike to cause the other to release the pressure. Shulk's hands go for Ike's throat, fingers squeezing in around the Adam's apple. Ike pounded at his chest, a fist colliding with the navel, a force so powerful Shulk flies back onto his ass. Roy's hands seize the barrel of one of the pistols, and he clutches it close to his arms, pointing it back outwards at the two men. He can't get a clear shot, and he is not about to try and just shoot point blank.

As terrifying as it may sound, Ike is on cloud nine with the fight. He gets groggily to his feet, coughing, clutching at his throat, bearing his fists. Shulk stands back up, shaking his head. Tis but a scratch, after all. The two advance on each other, the former feinting to the left, the latter foolishly taking the bait. With a warrior's cry, the bluenette launched his right fist at Shulk, flesh colliding with the side of his face. Sensory overload as Shulk sprawls back to the ground groaning, Lyn firing off scruples of information in lightning fast sped. Ike goes to kick Shulk in the ribs - a dirty move perhaps, but one such needs to happen - but the blonde swings his legs left, tripping up Ike, who falls down.

The blonde gets back onto Ike, and the fall is enough to disorient the Charlie Squad commander. Roy has his hands wrapped around the gun, trying to shakily get to his feet. The slight wound in his shoulder is killing him, and all of a sudden the pain in his fingers is flaring up again. It downs him to one knee as his flesh is literally burning from the inside. At this point, Shulk is slugging punches into Ike's face, a tooth flying here, bruising happening here. One after the other, shadow in the form of fist to flesh, fist to flesh... an expression of outrage as all of the emotion bent up inside the Alpha Squad commander is unleashed in this flurry of attacks.

Ike tries squinting through the pain, and when Shulk winds back another punch to the jaw, he catches the commander's arm by surprise. Shulk is thrown for a loop, momentarily, looking at the fact his attack is ceased, his arm being wrenched back, almost to the point of breaking it or tearing a muscle. With a heavy grown, Ike headbutts Shulk straight in the face. There's no sound of crunching to be heard, meaning his nose isn't broken, but it has to be one of the most painful things Shulk's experienced that is not being shot directly. Shulk stumbles back, blinking the white lights away from his vision, Ike getting to his feet, breathing heavily. Even if age is starting to slow, Shulk can throw a _damn_ mean punch... holy hell.

Roy lets out an exasperated scream as the fire continues lacing through his fingers, the copper wire beginning to glow a dull amber. Ganondorf cannot be possibly coming back. There's no way! He's destroyed, he watched it with his own eyes. Ike and Shulk begin trading punches again. The former cuts left, the latter blocks it. Shulk swings a foot down, but Ike leaps out of the way, nimble like an acrobat, before slugging another deft punch the commander's way. The bluenette turns around quickly, lashing out with a foot, the foot colliding with Shulk's arm. The commander hisses in pain, bounding back some... and that's Ike's chance.

He collides into Shulk once more, gripping him by the back of the shirt, punching him in the stomach, again, again, again, _again,_ a blow after the other, and Shulk is starting to cough blood, blood splattering onto the chrome floor. The blonde falls back, letting out a moan of pain, Ike joining him down on the ground. Roy's hands stop shaking in pain, the fire starting to die down inside his fingers, rolled onto his stomach, gun pointed directly at the duo, out of breath.

Ike has one arm pressed into Shulk's neck, the other raised high above, into a fist, ready to smash itself into one of the blonde's facial features if need be. Both of their faces are a wreck, bruised, battered, destroyed... they've seen other days. These two men are supposed to be figurative brothers, and here they are fighting, all because a silver viper elsewhere in the country has them strung up by strings, dancing away haphazardly, duked out in a melee for the ages.

"Please," Ike is pleading, tears starting to roll down his face. "I don't want to do this anymore, Shulk. I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted of fighting. I can't fight you! We're supposed to be brothers..."

"I don't want to fight, either..." Shulk says, but all the hair on Roy's arms stand up. He's not buying some sort of 'ancillary' act.

"You can't beat me. You know you can't beat me. Please... give up. Throw in the towel, Shulk. I don't want to hurt you anymore. I _can't_ hurt you anymore. Oklahoma City, Chicago, the fight in the streets today... _you_... I can't anymore, Shulk. Please!"

"I know I can't beat you," the blonde admits. "I've never been able to beat you. But I know someone else who can..."

Confusion spreads across Ike's face. "What are you talking about?"

"Marth can, Ike. Marth can defeat you," and the gruesome smirk that is half-smirk, full-fledged sneer, chills sliding down Roy's spine. He swivels his head around, expecting the somehow paralyzed commander to make an appearance through the door like Ike did just moments ago... but nothing is happening.

"I- what are you, I don't..." Ike says, and there's fear creeping up onto his face, his breathing accelerating.

"He's gone, Ike. Marth is gone. The rebels were destroying everything left and right..." Roy notices that there's some movement on the blonde's side - his _hands?_ \- but he is not quite so sure. Ike's grip on the commander's neck is beginning to relent, leaning back, listening to what Shulk is saying. "We were planning on evacuating him, but the rebels got to the hospital first. They blew it to smithereens, Ike. It's no longer standing. Your best friend is dead, Ike! He's gone. He's buried under rubble, Marth is dead, Ike!"

"I- I don't..." all the color drains in Ike's face. He has let go of the pressure on Shulk's neck.

"Don't worry, you'll be able to see him again. Don't worry," and then Roy sees it. He knows, and he's screaming, trying to get Ike's attention. Roy had seen the glimmering of something silver in the back of Shulk's pants... but he didn't quite know what it had been. Shulk's movement had been his hands going downwards, towards his pants, and with Ike distracted. "Tell him I said hello, when you see Marth in hell!" Shulk screams at the bluenette.

It all happens too fast. It happens way too fast for Roy to still truly comprehend what he's seeing. Shulk pulls something out of his back pocket, having it hidden from Ike's gaze. There's a glint of silver, a true silver, as silver as Corrin's hair... a _knife,_ and the blonde rams it into Ike's unsuspecting chest. The commander chokes a croak of surprise, leaping back onto his feet, Shulk following suit. There is betrayal, hurt, pain... all of it is laced on the commander's face. Shulk's face has never been more straightforward when he then rips the knife out of Ike's chest, and before Roy can even think about squeezing the trigger, Shulk swipes the knife in a moonlit arc, the blade connecting cleanly with Ike's throat, slicing it from one ear to the other.

"NO!" Roy screams, as Ike stumbles back, one hand going to his chest, the other to his throat. He gives Shulk a pained final stare, before stumbling back and slipping, onto his back, arching upwards at the smoky sky.

The redhead leaps up, running over to Ike's side. He- he can't do anything, there's no way. Ike isn't responding to Roy's pleas, instead, all he's doing is gasping for breath, choking on his own blood, eyes dancing everywhere, body spasming, choking, choking, _choking._ There's so much blood, oh my god there's so much blood. It isn't all Ike's, it can't be. Roy holds onto the bluenette in terror, watching his friend convulse... before his body goes slack in his arms, copper still dripping from both wounds.

Shulk sighs, throwing his hair back, wiping the blade off with his shirt. The other gun, either his or Ike's, the one not picked up by Roy, is laying on the opposite side of the Needle statue. He throws a glance at the center console, lifting his eyebrows up in surprise. He had just entered the fifth USB, a little bit into Roy begging him to see the 'light' or whatever, and now the bar is complete, a thirteen letter and number code, the letters all different capitalizations, with a few semicolons tossed in the middle displayed underneath. The project is finished.

All he has to do is now call Corrin and she'll have the access to the Needle. No one could dare try and stop Syrenet now.

He picks up the other gun, loading it.

"I'm sorry about killing Ike, Roy, but you know why I had to. He got in the way. I didn't want to... but I had to. Just like I have to do this..." he says.

Roy knows that Shulk is speaking, but he's blocked him out. All he can do is place his hands against Ike's chest, pressing downwards, _downwards_ as if he is somehow able to resuscitate him back to life, as if he has that power. He remembers what Pit had said, back in the hospital, talking about holding Marth's wounded body in his arms, while the rebels were swarming them, the commander shot through the spine, and all that is there is blood, bits of spinal cord, dead bodies, blood, blood, _blood,_ and more blood, and at the center: panic.

However, the emotion Roy is feeling is not panic. It's _anger._ A surging anger, a blinding white anger, a furious and hot anger. For Cloud, killed by a man who doesn't know the truth, who is so ignorant he can no longer see it. For Ness, his AI Unit, who simply overstepped his boundaries, before everything got too deep. For Mac, for poor Mac, so close to finding out the truth. For Ike, now, laying here, dead, in service to his country, all because there's someone more important the nation on his mind, and that's Marth, who isn't dead, as Pit even said so...

He feels anger for Fiora. Her husband is standing in his presence, and all the man will do is deny the truth, deny her memory... how she's been married to a coward her entire life and he never even knew it.

He's not doing this just because he has to. Someone stole away Shulk Roberts, a man he thought he knew, a man he thought cared about him, and that's none of this. That's the not the person he's stuck atop this stupid device with. That is not the person who'd simply balk to his face about things, insult him... none of it, and yet it is happening, yet it exists. How dare he. Shulk Roberts is not the man who would've killed three Syrenet employees and the First Husband to cover the tracks of an office official... someone's taken control of his boss, ofhis _friend,_ stolen him away like a thief in the night, and replaced him with a robot. A cold, calculating robot, with no consumption for human emotion.

Corrin has done this.

He's feeling sadness.

He's feeling anger.

However, there is one thing he is experiencing above all, where it radiates down into his core, up through his bones, and that there's only one option left.

 _Revenge._

Revenge for the fallen.

Revenge for the real Shulk Roberts.

Revenge for Fiora, the poor woman...

Revenge for himself.

"The Needle has finished downloading the access code. All I have to do is make the call, Roy. Face it... you've failed," Shulk says, cocking the chamber.

Roy lifts his head up, his very own pistol in his lap, the other one Shulk hadn't taken, the one he hadn't looked for. "No, Shulk. You're wrong. _You've_ failed."

He jumps up, holding out the gun. Shulk fires a shot, but it goes streaking back past him, missing him, into the void of the Detroit air. The commander backs up, but this time Roy presses the barrel of his own pistol against the blonde's chest, pushing him all the way to the edge. However, there's no hesitance in Roy this time; he's seen enough, he's not bringing him back from the grave, from the dead, this imposter... it's time.

Roy presses the barrel of the gun right up against Shulk's heart, and without a moment's notice, squeezes the trigger.

The bullet shoots through the commander's heart, right out the other side, a clean shot. Shulk croaks out a cry, but no blood follows. Roy leans in, pressing his lips to the side of the commander's face, squeezing his eyes shut, and a tear does fall down. "I'm not sorry for this..." he whispers, and when he retracts, Roy pushes Shulk away, pushes him off the side of the Needle of Detroit, away from the Eye, away from the storm.

He stands on the edge, the last words Shulk will ever utter in his life echoing in his ears, watching as the commander of Alpha Squad falls down, _down, down, down_ to his death, vanishing through a plume of smoke billowing up from one of the following buildings. His heart continues to beat in his chest, blood caking his face, his shoulder stinging, his fingers still stinging.

Roy turns around, letting out a deep sigh.

Oh my god.

 _Oh my god._

He cannot believe what just happened. Rightfully so, he'll say, but still... _holy fuck._ Though he already knows the answer, Roy walks back to Ike's body, laying out, hands splayed, bones rigid, the body gone into rigor mortis. His flesh is still warm, Roy pressing two fingers up against the nape of his neck. No pulse. He closes Ike's eyes, bowing his head in respect.

Roy doesn't want to be the bearer of news that Ike's gone.

Or Shulk.

But he'll have to, there's no other person to do so.

Roy stands back up, going to the center console for the Needle. Corrin will wait and wait and wait for the phone call that will never come, from the commander that is no longer living. He grabs all the USB's, crushing them under his fist, marching to another side of the platform, throwing them down the side. The Needle is still humming, the gray halo dissipating, no longer needed... it'll stand, it'll stay, until someone else with more authority can decide what to do with it.

He returns back to Ike's body. How is he going to get him out of here? Roy isn't sure. He digs into the commander's pockets, trying not to think too much about it, pulling out the AI Unit disc. Lyn must still be existing in her own virtual world, no cracks appearing on it. As he stands back up, something prickles at the back of the agent's neck. When he looks over his shoulder, still in their place... there's the shards of Lucas's disc as well. How he could even forget...?

The agent kneels down, picking up each shard in his hands. Even Lucas Dio, the most innocent creature of innocent creatures is tainted by Corrin's reach, mocked by Shulk's disease... and destroyed. What went through Lucas's mind, Roy wonders, when everything went dark? What were his last opinions of Shulk, knowing who brought the end to him? He looks away painfully, pocketing the shards. Shulk's last piece on Earth... and it's a pile of rubble.

The sound of a helicopter begins to fill the rest of the void, because that's all Roy is feeling... emptiness. He's empty right now, he can't describe it any other way. For what has transpired. His comm blares, and he knows who that helicopter belongs to.

"Roy! Roy, is that you atop the Needle?" comes Pit's excited voice, excited in the means of urgent, not happy.

"Yeah, it's me," then with a choked noise in his throat. "We're going to need an ambulance, somehow, Pit. We've got a commander down. _Commanders_ down."

"What are you talking about? Who's..." a pause, rifled by a sob. "Who's the body?"

"It's Ike, Pit," Roy bites on his lower lip so he doesn't cry. "He's dead."

"Oh god..." there's shuddering, and even a slight wail accompanying it. "Where's- where's Shulk, Roy?"

"He's gone." and that's all Roy has the ability to say.

He removes his hand away from the comm, not paying any attention to the helicopter with Snake, Robin, Pit, Midna, and whomever this Samantha person that Ike had mentioned... but he's not looking at the copter. He's looking upwards, all the way at the Needle.

At what it represents.

The darkness its caused.

He glares at the obelisk, at what it represents. At _who_ it represents.

Corrin Etch is going down, Roy promises.

It's time to end the queen's reign.

Today, in Detroit, atop the Eye of the Needle, disaster has struck.

* * *

 ***deep breath***

 ***many deep breaths***

 **Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #37: Eye of the Needle. And, I have to say, I am right here, _right now_ shaking. I'm actually shaking in disbelief that I just wrote this, the very first idea that came to me planning Syrenet back in November of 2016, as a junior, and now I'm 19, a freshman in college, and getting so close to the end. This is the longest chapter of Arc 4 right now, and unless I am going to pull something wild out of my ass that I am not planning for with the last three chapters, it _will_ be the longest chapter of the entire arc. We have a bit to cover, so let's do it.**

 **Sheik has been perhaps the hardest piece of the story to write so far, but she has to be in here. I didn't know how to end her storyline, as death seemed too... too feasible, too accessible for a character of her nature, and this confession that she's just uttered wasn't in my original planning either. However, with the ending nigh upon us, she has a part that satisfies me.**

 **With the flashback, it is the last flashback of the story... and it was the only conversation that I have between Robin and Shulk that is longer than one or two sentences, like in Damaged Dinner. I wanted it to be poignant, and I think it served its purpose.**

 **Now, this final confrontation between Roy and Shulk, then extended with Ike... I was dreading to write it. Not because I think it was hard, per say, as I had gone over the specifics more than anything I've written to date, but because I wanted it to be done right. I think I did it, pretty well, and all the truth came out. Shulk killed Cloud - which a lot of you suspected - he destroyed Ness, which we already knew about, and he was Mac's murderer at the end of Arc 3. I struggle with fight scenes, but I hope he and Ike's was okay, I may add to it.**

 **I didn't plan to kill Ike there, either. But I knew, I just knew... I wanted to. It wasn't there in the original storyline draft, but there's reasoning to all my madness, and I'll miss him. Shulk's death, however, was the first thing this story focused on. When I started Chapter 2, his first introduction, it's all I had tickling the back of my head, that he's going to die. I loved him. I honestly did. I had a conversation with CrashGuy01 last night about his character, and I made a bold claim that I found Shulk to actually be my favorite character in the piece to write - he was the main character - and I loved him, though I imagine a plenty of you will disagree with me that's he more than likely your least favorite. However, he's gone... and I'm flabbergasted, and I'm sitting here still shaking.**

 **Thank you all so much for reading this, today, or tonight, what have you. It took me five hours over the last two days to churn this out, and I'm just relieved to be done, like hallelujah. We have one more final confrontation to go, and I think Roy spelled it out for you pretty well with those last lines. I was planning to have the full chapter out by the 22nd, this Saturday, but inspiration compelled me for earlier. Please review. It would mean the world to know your thoughts. I cannot wait to publish Chapter #38: Throwing Down the House, which will probably be released in early October. You have an amazing day! I love you all! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	38. Chapter 38: Throwing Down the House

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #38: Throwing Down the House. It has been another two month or so since I last posted, and again, like last chapter, this is one of those I just had to spend the time getting to be where I want it to be, as this has definitely drained me a bit - don't worry Brinstar Depths, I'll get back to ya soon! - and I wanted it to have its due time. Review replies!**

 **SeththeGreat- Shulk had a lot of screen time because he's a main character and in that, his arc with Fiora is the entire basis of this piece, in truth. He has had more screen time than Roy or Corrin actually, but yeah, they are the three main characters. Now, I know that he was your least favorite as you had mentioned earlier, but does his Shakespearean tragic ending change your mind on him at all. I guess what I'm asking is if you thought he was a bad character. Roy is indeed a great soldier. Your question actually was the hardest part for me when writing this chapter... but you'll see how it all plays out in the end.**

 **Metroid-Killer- You think Roy won't succeed? That's interesting; you're the only one to give me that thought. So far it seems Ganondorf's machinations draw Roy out of his fighting senses, but since he never got to turn him into a cyborg, I think those possibilities stop right about there. I think - I may be mistaken - that I wrote that Roy took of his Syrenet suit, and Shulk wasn't wearing his... but it is still no excuse for sloppy action. I hope the end of this story satisfies you after this treacherous journey I've brought you all along on.**

 **Derick Lindsay- Shulk was the person who shoots you, but Corrin is the one who orders it... so who is** ** _truly_** **at fault here? Corrin has been a master manipulator since the very beginning, and sometimes you guys would catch onto it, but not fast enough. Shulk's loyalty being all twisted is expounded upon further in this chapter. You can't wait for Corrin to die? Don't let Underscore Overture see that (otherwise known as Metroid-Killer, they love her). They're going to throw down the house.**

 **CrashGuy01- This was the secret I didn't want to ever share with anyone, as it'd spoil the entire piece. All along you think it could be someone else - maybe someone on Sheik's side... maybe Ganondorf - but then he admits it, he just admits it, because he feels like he has nothing left to lose at this point. I'm glad you liked the fight scene... no matter how hard I try, my fight scenes are pretty terrible lol. Marth isn't dead, he got out of that hospital alive, as Shulk was just lying to get Ike off of his game. Snake and Robin are alive: Pit spoke to them via his comm device in the sewers. Alive, we have Roy, Corrin, Midna, Snake, Robin, Pit, Sheik, and if you want to count him since we don't know his fate: Lucas.**

 **Long reply, I know, but damn ya'll killed it with reviews. Okay, time for the third to last chapter (we're almost there guys; I can taste it) Chapter #38: Throwing Down the House. Enjoy!**

* * *

Clouds blur by as the helicopter travels on autopilot. Wantonly, Roy groans, rolling over and off of the bench he had been sleeping on, colliding with the metal grate floor with a _CLUNK._ That snaps him awake, the redhead sputtering, shaking his head back and forth. How long had he been asleep? Looking outside, going to the window with the clouds blowing by, it hadn't been very long, perhaps not even an hour.

He rubs his eyes, clutching his head. God, that fall actually kinda hurt. It all had been a blur to him, he realizes, with a frown. Just... a few hours ago if even that... Shulk is dead. Ike is dead. Shulk killed Ike, and Roy killed Shulk. He places a hand up to his forehead, his body slick with sweat. Where is everyone? Looking around, Roy got to his feet, shakily with his limbs trembling underneath. It must've been his position that he had been lying in, which wasn't comfortable.

The helicopter is quite large, which Roy hadn't expected. He had grabbed onto the rope ladder which Pit held out for him, muttering a 'screw off, Snake, go to hell,' before collapsing into a slumber. It must've not been a long slumber. Alerted by his fall is Snake, the FBI director standing closer over to the central console for the helicopter, Robin bent over some part of the panel. Pit is up against the wall, keeping to himself, and a blonde lady that Roy is unable to picture... is it Samantha? The woman Ike mentioned?

Midna is curled up by herself on the other side of the helicopter, on her own bench, head turned into her neck, chest rising and falling slowly. One thing is very clear, Roy notes, looking down at his hands. How much he's shaking. The reason _why_ he's shaking.

Snake walks over to him, like expected.

"How are you feeling?" he asks.

"Like shit," Roy answers.

"I'd expect that." A bit of silence follows the statement, where the FBI director looks away, down at the floor, then back at the redhead. "Are you okay?"

What is he supposed to say to that? He's sure Snake has had a hard time in his life as a governmental worker, but Roy saw way too many screwed up things in the Detroit sewers to want to say he is 'sane'. "No..." he says, honestly, and then he looks away. "I watched Ike die in my arms. I killed Shulk. You should've heard what he said."

"I did."

That's a surprise to Roy, the Syrenet employee raising his eyebrows, eyes widening. "What? I-" he pauses. He doesn't remember saying a word to anyone in the helicopter before passing out. Midna had already been asleep when he climbed on, into Pit's hugging arms and Robin's worried voice, with the blonde acting silently. How would he have been able to…?

Snake frowns, and for the third time in this exchange, someone bows their heads. "You were muttering it in your sleep."

Roy's heart sinks. He's never been known to be a person to talk in their sleep, let alone sleep _walk,_ which he's always found extremely creepy. He scratches the back of his neck. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," the other man consoles, placing a hand on his shoulder. Then, a pause. "Pit managed to salvage a bit of the Syrenet armor. Do you want to look at it?"

A lump forms in Roy's throat. "I want to be as far away from anything Syrenetic as I can. I don't want to touch any of that stuff anymore. Not after what I heard. What I experienced."

The FBI director takes a sigh, running a hand through his hair. There's so much the two could say, so much the two _should_ say, but he understands - both men do, actually. Snake walks away from Roy, almost as if he is a recursive disease. Roy can imagine, quite well, in great detail, just what he looks like. Probably like shit, as he said, which is the best feeling he can think of. He looks behind him, away from the main cockpit of the helicopter, and lying in the back is some sort of long sheet, a lump underneath it, one likewise rising in his throat.

Roy takes a step towards it. He doesn't need to lift up the sheet to know what's underneath it, but someone's going to half to do it, going to have to see what Shulk has done. It is as if his limbs are stuck in a lump of amber, cockroach legs fluttering about till the insect suffocates underneath the life form, and a pressure builds on the redhead's shoulders as he gets closer and closer and closer.

He reaches the sheet, lifting it up and away from the top part of the object's form, releasing a choked cry. Roy stares down at Ike's face, the man's eyes closed, the stab wound still there on his body, blood caking his face, and the soot of the Detroit air clinging to his now sordid navy locks. This is the result, a culmination of Corrin's underhandedness and Shulk's betrayals and the lies, all the _lies_ spreading around Syrenet. Ike is innocent. Lucas is innocent. Midna, Robin, Snake, Pit, Marth... they're all innocent.

"I'm sorry for what happened to you," he whispers, as if the bluenette will revive himself and respond; Roy knows it's a foolish dream but he's dreaming it nonetheless and no one is going to tell him otherwise.

Roy places the sheet back over Ike's face, lifting his head up to the top of the helicopter roof to suppress the tears that wish to spill down his cheeks. He wasn't necessarily as close to Ike as Pit or Marth would've been, just like with Mac dying, but he is still allowed to be upset, and then he can direct his upsetedness into rage, and that rage is directed towards a silver viper probably cowering god knows elsewhere.

He turns around, unsure of what to do. He could sit back down in silence, fall back asleep, or wait till Midna awakes, but all of these options require doing nothing, and he wants to do some action. Roy looks down at his hand. The metallic, copper pieces of wire are still there, glinting in the light, but they're no longer burning his hands like they were back atop the Needle. He frowns. What exactly did Ganondorf do to him? He believes, since the cyborg is destroyed, that he can no longer affect anything in the real world, and all Roy's burning sensation is simply exposure... as Roy hasn't been seeing digital bits of code or emerald green dollar signs flash in his vision. He's seen the red ledger of the blood he's spilled, the white enrapturing feel of agony, and the blinding hot colorless emotion of anger.

His eyes flit back up to the woman that has been standing up against the far wall, closest to Robin and Snake, and next to Pit. She is standing there, silent, arms crossed over her chest, head facing the floor, but she doesn't seem to be sleeping. Roy tilts his head. He recognizes her, but he's unable to put a finger on where she may have come from or where he would've seen her before. The redhead searches his brain... and then it clicks.

The gray shawl wrapped around her neck. The fishtail braids... that scowl.

Someone else is in the frame of this picture, Midna's ferociously beautiful scarlet hair blowing in the breeze... and Link's own blonde, with his hunting knife and boots and green jacket and earring in his ear. The starting of this entire mess, isn't it? What got him compromised in Boston? What has led to the umpteenth nightmare about Link Collins and his ability to screw him over?

Roy curls a hand into a fist, stomping over to her, his feet making loud clanking noises on the hollow ground. He stops in front of her, half expecting himself to slam her against the wall.

"You're Sheik Braring, aren't you?"

She looks up, almost amusedly. "Yeah."

That jars him from everything, time slowing once more. That's it, that's all her reaction was. Mediocre. Commonplace. Content. He wants to scream at her... for what, he doesn't know. "You were the one buying the weapons from Link..."

Sheik narrows her eyes at Roy. "You were the agent who I was told had been spying on him, after I bought the weapons," she takes a pause, sniffling, wiping at her nose. "That deal was a sham. I didn't get any guns or missiles. Instead, I got bombs."

"Landmines." A lump forms in Roy's throat. "Like the ones used in Detroit."

"The very same..." she gives a wry smile, a hollow smile, a ghostly fill of pearly whites that causes Roy to shiver. Doesn't she realize what she's done? Doesn't she realize the consequences of her actions? And yet she stands here, so nonchalant about all of this. Roy feels like he's stuck in some strange Bizzaro world, where the bizarre and unnatural is agreed upon rather than the realistic truth.

"Do you have any idea how many people you've killed?"

"I can give a good estimate," and at this, Sheik raises his head some, her expression far more telling than simply irritation. She's become lament, she's recognized herself and the atrocities she's committed, in the name of some idealistic revolution that is half right and all wrong. "I've had my reasons."

Snake removes himself from the conversation he is having with Robin, to join Roy's side. "Miss Braring filmed herself in Detroit earlier today, admitting everything. She's..." he struggles to find the right word. "Surrendered."

"Surrendered?" Roy furrows his eyebrows.

"In exchange for one thing..." Sheik trails off mysteriously.

"And what would that be?"

"The death of my mother."

Roy doesn't understand what's going on here. "Why would the death of _your_ mother do us any good?"

Snake pinches the bridge of his nose. "As crazy and complicated as this may sound, Roy, you're talking to Corrin and Cloud's daughter."

"Corrin and Cloud's _what?_ "

"Daughter," Sheik picks up the mantle piece.

Roy takes a step back from the trio, Pit looking up at him warily. The technician hasn't said anything, but the redhead configures that to be due to the corpse laying a hundred feet away from him. However, he jumps from the technician to the rebel leader standing in front of him. Cloud and Corrin had a daughter? _When?_ When the hell did this happen? And now, somehow, if Snake's telling the truth, then that means Corrin's daughter has been trying to bring Syrenet down this whole time. A dose of irony... but Roy's mind is too overwhelmed right now to think of anything cynical or smart.

"You're her daughter?"

"Unfortunately..." Sheik clucks her tongue. "I turned myself in as long as I am able to bring my mother..." she makes a grimace, as if saying the word 'mother' is tainting her tongue in a poison. " _Corrin,_ down."

"Which is what we're trying to do," pipes up the vice president, for the first time since the conversation started, the other silverette righting herself.

"And how well has it been going?" Roy asks.

"Not well..."

Before anyone else can say another word, there's some rustling behind the group. Roy turns around to see that it's Midna waking up from her own nap, having fallen asleep since she had been picked up by the plane. The FBI agent sits up, rubbing her eyes, surveying the scene, before she immediately clicks with Sheik. Like fire, Midna stands up, the two having locked gazes within seconds of her waking up. Roy goes to greet her, however she storms past him.

"Midna, I-" the blonde starts to say, but she doesn't get to finish the statement.

The redhead marches over to Sheik, grabbing her by the throat, slamming her into the side of the helicopter wall. "You!" she roars, a murderous rage highlighted throughout her tone. "What are you doing here? You murderer! You murdered Mac!" she begins to shake Sheik, clearly tightening her grip as the blonde rebel is actually starting to claw at her.

"Midna!" Roy cries out, rushing at her, trying to pull out of her shoulder. "Midna, let go of her!"

"You killed him! Do you have any idea what you've done? How many people you've-"

"Midna, let go of her!" Roy yells, louder, over the other redhead, and everything ceases for just a moment, enough in time. "She didn't kill him! Shulk did!"

That snaps something in her, the FBI agent jarring like a signal combating static, but the grip on Sheik's neck is not fully released; fingers are no longer plaiting into the skin. Clearly, as Roy realizes, with Midna being asleep, she doesn't know of any of the truth, at the very least bits and pieces. Ike heard it all through the door that led to the Needle, Snake and Pit heard it through Lucas's crumbled bits of AI Unit, and from Lyn, Ike's personal digital buddy... as well as Roy's ramblings, but she hasn't herself. All Midna understands is that there is an enemy in front of her who has killed a lot of people, which is true, but there needs to be a hesitancy to everything.

Sheik is released, and she simply lays back against the wall, unmoving, chest rising and falling. She lets out a coarse cough. "It's good to see you too."

The FBI agent steps backwards. "I'm really confused. I-"

"She's on our side," Snake mediates, shrugging his shoulders.

Roy feels like he's stepped into the twilight zone. Forget everything you think you know sort of cliché, as well.

"Our side?" Midna repeats, mystified, brow brunched up in confusion.

"She's going to help us bring down Corrin," Robin pipes up, having stayed away from all of it. Sheik shifts her neck back and forth, rubbing her jaw, Pit having moved away from the commotion himself so he isn't clobbered. "Which is what we were about to discuss."

Roy notices that, for the first time, no one is actually flying the helicopter or plane or whatever the hell sort of aerial vehicle they were in. Did that mean they were flying some sort of long distance? Why hadn't he noticed it when he awoke? His hands are still shaking, however, that much is evident, and he actually sits up against the center console to rest, to place his hands on the metal and hope the cold ceases the action.

"Where are we?" he asks.

"Floating," Robin explains. At the then turn of the redhead's head, she gives an exasperated sigh. "It means we are staying in the air for as long as we are able, hoping to find a place safe to land. I put as on autopilot for a reason; I'd rather not land us somewhere immediately without knowing where it is we're going. Our intel is helping decide that for us now, what's deemed safe and unsafe," she gestures towards the walkie-talkie placed by the console.

"Why can't we land in D.C?"

Snake locks his jaw, looking away for a moment. Roy's heart rate begins to increase. What could that possibly mean?

Midna seems to latch onto his feelings. "Guys, why can't we land in D.C?"

"The White House is currently no more, blown up by C-4 and other sorts of explosive devices. Washington D.C is currently in a process of an evacuation / lockdown," Snake says, with a bit of force behind it.

Everyone's attention swivels to Sheik, the blonde stepping back, crossing her arms with a scowl. "Don't assume it was me! I didn't plan on attacking D.C. Corrin would've been the one to do that!"

"Oh?" Midna scowls. "So, killing thousands of people in a city isn't beneath you, but destroying the White House is?"

"Don't talk to me like your high and mighty either, _Amber,_ " Sheik scolds her, causing Roy to frown. _Amber?_ That reference didn't make sense. Why...?

"Keep it up and I'll-" the FBI agent advances on her.

"Ladies, that's enough!" Snake shouts. "Either you two move away from each other or neither one of you speak. Corrin would love to see us arguing right now, wouldn't she?"

For the first time in the entire conversation, Pit speaks up, having been pushed to the side. Roy sees that he's no longer wearing his angel wings, creating a rather ideological metaphor that Icarus flew too close to the sun and his wings melted. "But why would Corrin blow up the White House?"

"A metaphorical statement perhaps?"

"That the U.S Government doesn't mean anything to her anymore? That she's above it?"

"That'd be my guess," Robin says, locking her jaw. "I thought I knew her..."

They need to keep their eye on the ball. "Where is she?" Roy asks, sticking to the pertinent questions. It could be like searching for a needle in a haystack, a slithering snake in a group of deer where the grass blends in with the look of the snake's skin. All you see are the eyes, those emerald eyes, before she strikes, a venomous bite delivered to the middle of your forehead and you're dead. "Is she hiding?"

"Oh, no, not at all," Snake says, rather cheerfully, for some reason. "In fact, she's been very clear on where she is. She's been livestreaming for the last hour about drinking and stuff. Location? Her and Cloud's vacation home in Norfolk."

"Where no one would find her."

"Except she's made herself quite clear there."

Midna rubs her arms innocuously. "So... what are we supposed to do? She's president."

Roy wanders to another thought, one that actually might just be as important. Throughout his entire time in Syrenet, still thinking back to his introductorily speech from Shulk, there are more than just the Alpha, Beta, and Charlie Squads for Syrenet. Currently, with the missions in Oklahoma City, Chicago, and now Detroit, these three were directed on creating Syrenet branches in the country. The other twenty-three were dedicated to Op missions and peace-keeping across the globe. Were they under attack too? Did they know of conspiracies or cover-ups?

"And what about the other Syrenet squads? Like... Echo, or Ichor, or Zeta?"

"Still at their normal positions from before we left for Chicago," Pit answers, a bit of the old fire rising in him from before, his voice hinting pride at the mention of technology. "Echo Squad is still in Switzerland, Sierra Squad in the Vatican protecting The Pope. Trying to get them all here would be compromising."

"And what would be the consequences of removing them from their locations?" Roy asks.

"Disastrous," Robin shakes her head in dissent, grabbing onto her arms as if she's suddenly enveloped by a sudden chill. "These matters are far too important-"

"As if the security of this nation and the one running it _isn't_ ," the redhead Syrenet agent retorts harshly, before biting down on his tongue at his vileness. His lashing out is impulsive, necessary, but still impulsive. He regrets it immediately after saying it, the way Robin's eyes gloss over with pain, making a slight downturned frown with the corners of her mouth.

Snake intervenes, sensing the tension. It is what Corrin would want, to have pulled the wool over everyone's eyes, ripping the rugs from out underneath their feet to leave her what would be allies all confounded, confused, distracted, and better yet, paranoid. Paranoia is a disease that will rip through each of them like carving a cake via a sword, where it'll bury in deep with prophylactic tenacity, burrowing into the skin like a tapeworm. One by one someone will succumb to the disease, seeing an enemy in the shadows that doesn't exist until it begins to manifest into their worst fears, whatever that fear may be. Then, there will stand Corrin, over a magical, mirrored ball watching it all, waving her hands over the sphere, cackling. Paranoia is the true kingpin in the end; everyone meets their ends to its grisly clock that stands distanced from the rest of the emotions.

"What Robin meant is that the time spent trying to get the Squads together... it could be the end with how long it would take."

"He's right," Sheik agrees, removing herself from the wall. "You all know her; Corrin is probably, even though she's relaxing, planning all of our deaths and we don't even know it. We don't have a second of time to waste."

Roy watches as Midna processes this, unable to really put two and two together, at why this woman she has known for some time is not only a full-fledged criminal, but at the fact she's speaking about the president as if she knows any of what's going on, when ironically, out of everyone involved, Midna knows the least.

"So what do you advise, then?" Snake asks, his tone slightly mocking.

"She needs to be dealt with," Sheik answers, her body gesture simplistic enough. "It isn't rocket science. She's evil, she's doing destruction to our country, and no one else is in a position of power to stop her. Clearly, blowing up the White House gets the message across to the American people that she doesn't care what they think, she'll do whatever."

"But how do you advise that?" Robin approaches the subject again. "She's the _president_ of the United States. Last time I checked, just killing them outright is not the way to go."

An itch of irritation begins to poke at the undersides of Roy's arms, like a boil that is lanced. His fingers burn with a dullness in the flare again, causing him to hiss, his statement coming out a bit more vitriolic than he intended. "This isn't Watergate like with Nixon, Robin. This isn't someone sleeping around in the White House, or even the destruction of Reconstruction," he feels like she wouldn't already know this, but she would have to, the comparisons necessary. "Corrin is going to try to rule over the entire country, uncontested. We cannot allow that."

"She should deserve a trial!"

"She's guilty!" he yells. "A trial isn't going to do anything. She'd find a way to weasel her way out of it. To get free."

"Or get lethal injection..." Pit whispers to no one in particular.

Snake pinches the bridge of his nose. "So, Roy, Sheik... if your logic is to be as followed, you're suggesting we kill the president of the United States? That we execute our Commander-In-Chief and kill her?"

"Carpet bomb the place. Dead in seconds," Roy answers, again, perhaps too harsh, but he's leaving his answers out in the open without a desire to back himself up. Corrin Etch is the reason why all of this pain and sorrow has happened, where her eyes were to big for her stomach and now they're dealing with a full out catastrophe, a full out war.

"I won't agree to that," Robin locks her jaw.

"Why not?" Sheik frowns.

"Because, regardless of morality, she's an American citizen. She deserves the option of a trial?"

"And if she doesn't want one? That she'd rather die than go to jail?" Midna asks, reproachfully.

A long pause, followed by a dismal sigh, and the silverette looks down at the floor. "Then she dies. I couldn't help her then..."

An awkward silence falls over the group, one Roy is happy about, or otherwise he would've uttered, ' _good riddance_ '. There's so much going on that's unsaid, and he can feel it bristling over his skin, an electricity that is roaring and alive. Robin and Snake join together to discuss, with Midna and Sheik separating themselves like same side magnets. Roy slumps up against a bench, constantly looking back over at Ike's dead body underneath the sheet. Every time he does, the anger flares up in within him again. All Ike is doing is his job, and he's killed for it, because Shulk is deceived that he is doing his job: murdering unfairly for someone asking all the _right_ questions, for having the _right_ doubts, and for thinking that it's only one way or the highway.

Roy is starting to feel the effect of watching Shulk fall to his death, a bullet hole straight through his heart, where his body is swallowed by the monster of ash and smoke and sulfur. Everything that the establishment had collapsed, it all fell down. He wouldn't have believed it had some random stranger told him any of this; it would've been lunacy, absolute lunacy. However, he is told by some Syrenetic demon who wishes to encapsulate his image onto the redhead via physical torturing... where there's no hesitancy once the commander of the Alpha Squad admits it. Admits to everything, and the worst is yet to come... the worst has befallen all of them.

Snake and Robin retract from their conversation, the vice president standing up even straighter than before. Roy can see it in her eyes, a sort of trauma behind them, the soft diamond ones they used to be, now a hardened cobalt, a seriousness to them unmatched by even Corrins own glares. What happened to her in Detroit? Everyone had become separated from one another... there's no possible way to try and think of what had happened to each living member of Syrenet. A group of eleven went to Detroit, to try and create a Syrenet branch... and now only seven are returning on a trip back home: one missing, one who has revolted, the other five in a state worse for wear... four dead.

"We will land somewhere on the outskirts of Camp David... intel has let us know it is secure. We will need someone to go to Corrin. To bring her back," she declares, the rest of the statement going unsaid, but it doesn't need to be spoken. " _Or to kill her, to bring back her corpse."_

"Only us six can do something about it," Snake responds. "With the rest of all the Syrenet members from the other squads incapacitated to help us... and not knowing who doesn't already have Corrin's claws sunk into them, it's between us six."

There's no need to debate this with himself.

He has an answer already.

Roy, despite not needing to, stands. "I'll do it."

"If you're going, then I'm going too," Midna immediately jumps up after that.

"No," the male redhead swivels on his heel to her. "Not happening."

"No?" Midna scrunches her face up in confusion. "No? Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do?"

"Corrin already claimed Mac's life. She won't be claiming yours as well."

"Roy, I hardly think you should make that call-" Robin starts.

For some reason, the five of them stop, about to start an argument most likely, as is due the natural course of things with disagreements and such, when...

"I'll do it."

Heads turn, and rightfully so, this time, to Sheik.

She shrugs her shoulders. "I'll do it."

"You want to go and try and bring Corrin to justice?" Robin says, as if just voicing the thought everyone is thinking.

"I already admitted to being the leader of the rebels; why not let me complete my task if it's actually good?"

"I don't think-" Snake starts.

"I have my own personal reasons and scores to settle with her," Sheik's eyes flash like dangerous lightning. "I deserve this at least, especially if, right after that, I'm going to die for my own crimes."

Snake looks at Roy. The redhead is going to deny any sort of plea to reconsider. There's a huge point in trust here... Corrin can only be brought down by those on the helicopter. Pit isn't useless, but he would be in a fight. Robin is the second in command underneath Corrin, so she needs to be alive so she can obviously step up to the plate. Snake sounds like an ideal candidate; he's the head director of the FBI, but it looks like Robin will need all the help she can get. That boils down to Roy himself, Midna, and Sheik, and he's not going to let Midna put herself in that sort of position to be hurt again.

She already fought off Ganondorf with him, saving her life. He needs to be able to save hers, too.

"Roy? Would you be okay with that?"

"If she's an extra hand, I'm gonna need it."

"I've got some vendettas to accomplish."

"Get in line," Roy hisses through gritted teeth.

The two scrutinize each other. Roy remembers seeing her, having gripped Link's jacket collar by the lapels, twisting his finger... she had a good ole' grip, that Sheik Braring. Clearly intelligent, she's led an entire region to perform treason and rebellion against the government, ironically justified in some of her doctrine, some of her reasoning, despite the atrocities she's committed, atrocities committed nonetheless. A hand like hers... it would help.

Robin nods her head low, almost as if she's signing their deaths away. "Roy, Sheik... you'll be dropped away from the vacation home, and all by circumstances, try to convince Corrin to turn herself in."

"And if not?" Sheik gives a ghost of a smile.

"Give her hell," and then a pause. "That woman tried to have me killed."

Roy raises his eyebrows, eyes widening. _What?_ That hadn't been mentioned by Shulk... which sounds like quite the damn vital piece of information. _Oh, did you know? The vice president was nearly assassinated?_

Snake moves away from the console, grabbing Roy by the shoulder and pulling him away from the group. Roy flashes Midna a brief look of reassurance: he'll be fine, he's always been fine, and this is going to be no different. The two move over to the back of the plane, still by Ike's dead body, which the redhead cannot help but flit his eyes towards, consumed by the ever knowing rage each time.

The FBI director leans into the personal space of the agent. "When everything's said and done, regardless of how much Sheik helps, even if she lands the killing blow... subdue her. She's turned herself in, and we're going to need her to be in custody after this. You can't hesitate."

"I won't," Roy nods.

"Good."

He goes to move back when Roy grabs him by the arm, causing him to stop. Snake looks back at the redhead, Roy's gaze locked out the window, jaw set, eyes narrowed. "How many of us went to Chicago?"

"You, myself, Shulk, Corrin, Robin, Midna, Mac, Pit, Ike, Marth, and Lucas. Twelve of us."

"And how many to Detroit?"

"Same. Twelve."

"And how many are now leaving Detroit?" Roy looks at Snake.

The FBI director's gaze dies. "Six. Corrin separated from us, making it five."

"Dead?" A lump forms in his throat.

"Shulk... Ike… Mac... Lucas..."

"And what about Marth?" Roy mentions. He'd been looking for the other bluenette, the commander of Beta Squad. Last he knew, which had only been earlier that morning - the fact that the battle in Detroit, the torture by Ganondorf's hands, the battle atop the Needle with Shulk, and Syrenet's collapse... it happened under the guise of a whole morning and afternoon - the commander was in a Detroit hospital, barely alive, barely conscious, holding on to dear life.

"Alive," Snake responds, and Roy lets out a sigh. His fate had been the only unknown one. "He's back in his own hometown hospital, unharmed, having been evacuated by Detroit hospital personnel. Apparently Corrin sent guys after him, but he managed to beat them..." A pause. "He's guarded by the best of the FBI, for those I have the complete loyalty of."

"Good. Four lives too many were taken."

"I know." A low nod.

"She's a monster, Snake," Roy snaps his gaze to the director. "You know that, don't you?"

"I've always known, Roy," Snake shrugs his shoulders, hanging his head low.

He watches - Roy, that is - Snake go back to his position by Robin at the console, Midna having moved over to sit next to Pit, keeping him company, with Sheik sitting down as well opposite her to stare out the window. A tattered remains of what used to be a strong alliance, a group of twelve people united in one purpose: to restore Syrenet to its former glory, but now it is occupying the very presence of their tormentors, the pillars of their successes torn down and needing to be rebuilt. A modern day Phoenix.

Once again, Roy looks back at the sheet over Ike's body, resisting the urge to look at the face again, the face of what once used to be living.

He closes his eyes, a lone tear sliding down his cheek.

It is time to throw down the house.

* * *

The sun is just starting to set on the horizon, the sky matched in purity with its carnation pinks and roaring sunburst oranges. Roy is silent as he and Sheik make their way onto the Cloud and Corrin shared vacation home, the only sound being the noises of nature and the crunching of grass underneath their shoes. They're both armed to the teeth in guns and bullets, Sheik also carrying with her a knife strapped to the inside of her pant leg which she could unleash at any second.

Pit begs them, well, _begs Roy,_ to use his Syrenet suit, which is still in good condition, and have Ike's AI Unit in his head, but he refuses. As stupid as it might sound, and with him not even being in the right headspace for this, he's not going to try and be associated with anything she's - she being Corrin - has ever touched ever again, including something with her own imagination poured into it. No matter how poetic it might sound, with Corrin getting brought down by the very gifts she created, she's no longer the gift horse that cannot be looked at in the mouth. She's the viper, the Satan whose head is crushed under the heel of a booted foot.

Snake has them dropped off in a rather remote area of the surrounding drive, unlikely to be noticed by sentries of other roaming Secret Service guards. The White House is an obliterated, charred mess, and most of the White House personnel have been accounted for, placed at Camp David, but the Secret Service have all been unaccounted for. Seven names have been crossed off that list, which the FBI director attests to having killed them in Detroit, those involved in Operation Canary. Robin's Operation Viper had been much more kid-friendly.

This means the remaining ones are in one of three scenarios. Missing, elsewhere and cannot be found, likely dead, or under Corrin's thumb and promised riches and glory. Poor Shulk, who had been stupid enough to believe it.

The surrounding vicinity of the getaway is rather beautiful, with an expansive yard around the house, tree tops that tower thirty plus feet into the air against the backdrop of the canvas sky. Snake and Robin are monitoring, the best they can, through an eye lens in both Sheik and Roy's eyes, the two wearing special contacts. Pit gave, however selfless, his comm device to Sheik so she can communicate with everyone involved, the technician and Midna also going to be on the line.

Roy is trying to not think about how one of the worst U.S citizens in recent history is by his side, y'know, with being a domestic terrorist and all. How can one sleep at night? However, in this instance, the two are working towards the same goal.

It is eerily quiet when the two make their way through the thistle and gale to the property, the sky starting to darken even more. It is nearing 6:00 PM... it had been 7:00 AM when Midna noticed Mac's dead body, throat slit open at the Detroit compound... It is near noon for Mac's funeral, and then an hour later, Sheik attacks Detroit and destroys everything. At precisely 2:45, Roy is saved by Midna from Ganondorf's clutches, and at 4:30, Roy stabs Shulk in the heart, pushing him off of the Needle.

What an eventful day... and Roy is ready to end it with a bang.

He pauses, one half of his body out in the open, the other hidden behind the greenery. Sheik tenses alongside him, clutching her weapon.

"What?" she hisses.

"No guards outside?" Roy frowns, finding it peculiar. Unless Corrin Etch herself is so far gone up her own asshole to think the government she's been burning down for the last day is going to _rescue_ her, then he'd expect a bit of wariness. He's more caught off guard by the fact it seems like the vacation home is simply left abandoned. It couldn't be, though...

"Perhaps we've surprised her."

"This is Corrin Etch you're talking about. She's lied to the American people for ages now. I think we can tell when we're being foxed, here," Roy points out. "There's no getting a one-up on her."

Sheik has nothing to say in response to this. Roy crouches down to knee level, scanning the large yard. He had never seen the building in person, though he knew by word of mouth from the guys that this is the place where Marth asked to give themselves a little vacation. Ike read aloud Snake's concluding statement to the failure that is the Boston mission, Shulk laments about Fiora, and Pit decorates the porch with these Christmas lights and tinsel...

The decorations are still there, and it's been at least three weeks.

Now, Roy gets to decorate it with Corrin's blood.

He presses a finger against his comm, changing the wavelength to speak to a direct individual stuck at Camp David. "Pit... give me a quick scan. Is it abandoned?"

A crackle of sound on the other end, with Pit clacking away at the keyboard of his computer. "No, Roy. I spot multiple hostiles inside, one of them at least being the president. I count five, maybe six security team wise tops."

"Thank you, Pit." Roy goes to disconnect.

"Roy?" Pit stops him from doing so.

"Yes?"

"She killed Ike, inherently, didn't she?" the technician asks, voice cold, rigid... unmoving.

"Yeah, Pit... she did."

"I want her to experience his agony, and then tenfold it..." and he clicks off.

Roy turns back to Sheik, who had been anticipating an answer: all this cryptic code and talk is getting her nowhere. "Well?" she says, voice slightly annoyed.

"Five or six max."

Sheik grins wickedly. "We can handle that."

Roy, with gun at hand, having opted to pack a bit more firepower to him, a shotgun hanging off the belt, even a grenade for drastic measures, steps forward, exposing himself even more. "Pit told me there's also a back entrance... the home is at least six or seven thousand square feet." The place is quite huge, but he's sure that the guys wouldn't have gone exploring in it, since Corrin didn't necessarily give _them_ permission to even stay there in the first place. "Off to the front entrance, the front door, is a living room and kitchen... back door connects to several hallways and bedrooms."

"I take back you take front?"

"Why's that?"

"I have the knife. You have explosions. That'll draw everyone's attention to you."

Roy locks his jaw. It isn't necessarily the best strategy to go running in guns ablazing, all kamikaze style to then get shot down in seconds by a torrent of silver bullets. He'd prefer the back route, with the element of contained surprise... but he isn't exactly all too confident with his own hand-to-hand combat.

"Fine," he grits his teeth. "Keep your comm on."

"Wouldn't plan on turning it off. I'd rather _not_ die trying to kill my mother, Roy," Sheik retorts.

He's unable to snap back at her without causing a commotion, as she's scampering off across the yard, up against the tree line, until she's now wrapped herself around to the back of the house. Roy, swearing to himself about impatience and the need to draw out plans, shakes his head. He can already tell this is going to go greatly. He crouches down, running low, unable to hide behind any sort of obstruction. The curtains to all the windows are drawn shut, for the few that are up against that side of the wall. Roy reaches the side of the house, flattening himself up against it, trying to stem his heavy breathing.

He thinks about reaching out to Sheik, but that could blow everything too early.

Roy inches his way to the front porch, praying to every sort of deity he can think of that these steps aren't too creaky and alerts the house of six guards that they're there. He takes the steps two at a time, his feet not causing the porch to buckle, and he makes a light sigh of relief. He's now standing on the top of the porch, free hand eclipsing the doorknob. The door is already open, to his surprise, but it didn't seem busted in or kicked in or that it is due to forced entry of any sort.

As if it is left open.

As if to be expecting something or someone.

His blood turns to ice, but he shakes his head, trudging on in. He points his gun into the corners, no one in sight. What _is this?_ He is unable to make heads or tails of it. Corrin must be so deluded that she really thinks she's in the clear, that everyone she's tried killing has died and everyone who could possibly harm her has been so forcibly removed from the equation.

Roy makes his way into the foyer, pushing the door back behind him to the same exact spot where it had been found. Like he said, there is a kitchen straight up ahead, with a refrigerator that looks lonely in the expansiveness that is the tile floor underneath it. To his left is a hallway, and adjacently to his right, at a sixty degree or so angle is the entry into a room... perhaps one of many living rooms.

He makes his way into it, trying to not think that the dark is making it slightly hard to see. There's no sudden burst of white, meaning secret service gear via the dress shirt. The redhead stops, halfway into the room, gun trained on a seat in the middle of the room.

Something is awry... a hair out of place.

 _Aha!_

A hair out of place.

A single lock of silver hair peeks over the back of the chair, dimly lit by the lowlight of the room. Down to his right of the chair is some black object, a suitcase perhaps, and he's unable to determine what it is on such a hasty decision.

However, there's only one person that silver hair would belong to in a house like this.

Reckoning day has arrived.

"Corrin..." he says, almost complacently, like he used to... when he used to be her good solider.

She must've had her head perched downwards, reading something maybe, when she perks her head up. Not expecting company, eh? With a door wide open? No one outside guarding it? His suspicions are high. Sure as shit, with Roy's heart beating out of his chest faster than at any speed in which its been before, the chair turns around, Roy half expecting there to be a cat in the president's lap, all cliché. However, while it her, with those beady emerald eyes, instead she is holding a crossword puzzle in one hand, a pencil in the other. She looks up directly at who spoke to her, her face transforming of one that is concentration to one of elation.

"Roy!" Corrin grins, her smile full of fakery, those same old emerald eyes always watching his movements.

"Corrin..." he repeats again, at his cold distance.

She makes a disappointed face. "Corrin? Excuse me, Mr. Arcadia, but last I checked, I'm still your president."

"No, you're not," Roy lifts his head, raising his gun up at her. He should do it now, he should. Just shoot her in the head and be done with it. He wants to, but he's got to play by Robin's rules of fairness, and he isn't going to cross into evil territory here; one always rises above his enemies.

Corrin follows the motion of his arm, setting her pencil down on the crossword puzzle book. She gives a slight chuckle. "Put the gun down, boy. We both know you don't know how to use it."

"You'd be quite surprised at what I could do with a gun, _Corrin,_ " he hisses.

She smirks, then looks at him. For the first time, she might actually be looking _at_ him, through him too like she always has been since the day they met. He's alone. "Where's the rest of the gang? It's just you?"

"Just me."

"Where's Shulk?"

Roy knows his name is going to get tossed in there somehow, perhaps in the most hurtful ways since she knows, she _knows,_ she's always known what she's been doing to her blonde commander, the one who has given up his entire life and history and name and honor and _everything,_ for her, because somehow she manipulated him and twisted his body into a mess of sinew and tar and a puppet that could be molded in exactly the right way she wanted.

"He's dead," the redhead responds, his Adam's apple hard and coarse like a rock. "He died in Detroit."

"Shame..." she clucks her tongue.

"I shot him through the heart."

If Corrin is supposed to react to this piece of information, she chooses to go the incendiary route, to light the spark that ignites the flame that gets the Norfolk vacation home burned down. "So you can use a gun. I'm proud of you."

The lack of a real response infuriates Roy, causing him to clench the butt of his gun even tighter. He should just pop a shotgun shell straight into her head and see how she likes with the brain matter being splattered over the wall, with all the blood. He exerts self-control however, by lowering the gun slightly, _slightly._ "He admitted to it, you know. The Needle. Syrenet. Your plan."

"Oh?" She had been now picking at her fingernails. "I had wondered why the signal hadn't come through. We wouldn't be having this conversation, now would we?"

"You murderer..." Roy lets out a gasp of rage and pain.

"Careful now…" she _tsks,_ Corrin wagging a finger. "Going and using words of the dictionary you don't know is not a good way to start an argument. A conversation between equals."

Roy levels the gun back to her eyesight. "You were lying to Shulk the entire time about who killed Fiora, and you knew it... yet you let him go along with it."

"I did. It's not like me admitting it is going to bring him back, now is it?" she tilts her head at him.

"He died believing in you," there is pain in Roy's throat, an estranged scream he wants to release. "Thinking he was doing the right thing. Being a good soldier, by following orders."

"He was doing the right thing. We were under attack."

"Not just by rebels," the redhead shakes his head. "By you as well."

"Is that what you're going to call it?" Corrin places a hand under her chin.

"I can't think of a better description."

She stands up, going to rest her hands against the back of the chair that had been her seat. "Do you know, Mr. Arcadia, that i have never been denied anything in my life? That I always get what I want?" she lets there be a pause, but not allowing Roy to occupy the dead space that goes in between it. She won't ever give him the time of day for that. "When I didn't make cheer squad of my high school, I made sure the girl who beat me out got food poisoning the night before our homecoming game. When I was twenty-two, and my dad was dying of colon cancer... he removed from his will. All because the girl he had seen grow up was evolving... the system unable to play her." Another pause, but this time, a laugh. "It was the greatest moment of my life... watching as my father's throat eroded from the battery acid I poured into his orange juice. Watching him choke. Watching him with his bulged eyes and red skin, staring at me in horror as I placed that white pillow over his face. To sit there and know that his last thoughts were that his own daughter killed him. The doctors say he died from choking, from suffocation. They were... _partly_ right..." her eyes illuminate a mischievousness to them.

Roy is sick to his stomach, at what he's hearing her say. However, to the end of it, he isn't even shocked. "And now it looks like you're going to be denied."

Corrin clucks her tongue in disgust. "Y'know, I didn't expect to win the presidency... not in the landslide victory of all 50 states except Missouri. Here I am, president, everything's smooth sailing. I get a business proposition from across the pond, Mr. Rock Scott, the upcoming developer of a brand new form of fighting and robotic technology. Syrenet... but spelled like S-I-R-E... to give birth to," she clears her throat. "I want it. I want it bad... and I'm not denied anything I've ever wanted. In my hands, I uncover what Syrenet can do. What we can create with it. I'm on board with making Syrenet a global phenomenon... until one day I get a red alert that this city named Detroit in the state of Michigan decides they want to rebel against the United States government. Taxes or some bullshit. What would you have done?" she throws the ball back into his court.

"Don't try and change the subject, Corrin, it isn't going to work."

"You see, the Detroit engineers had began reconstructing their city to look like that beautiful cesspool of shit that is still standing today... and they create an ovation called the Needle... and that thing could do anything possible in terms of engineering. There is no better weapon to see the movements of the forces were against than by this device... and so I thought myself to try and take it over."

"Until Fiora found out what was happening and you had her killed," Roy whispers, his voice a croak.

"The human testing trial had happened long before Detroit's secession had become a concept... and I went halfway through Ganondorf's testing before stopping. It felt wrong," she upturns her nose. "Think what of me all you want, but I don't condone human experimentation anymore."

"It doesn't matter what you think or feel right now, Corrin," Roy says pointedly. "What matters is what you've done."

"I didn't expect Fiora to be brutally murdered the way she was... I hadn't given Ganondorf the permission to do that. But what do you think I was going to do? Just tell Shulk what happened?" the president shakes her head. "No way. I'm not stupid, Mr. Arcadia."

"And you go on like nothing ever happened."

"What was I to do, _Roy?"_ she says his name like a taunt, tilting her head, emerald eyes appraising him like a cat watching a mouse before killing it with their claws.

Roy starts to sweat, he's been sweating this entire time, throughout this entire confrontation with her. There's static in his ears, from the comm line being cut-off, and he hasn't heard anything from Sheik, nor has there been any _noise_ whatsoever going on. Is she dead? Is everyone in the entire country going to die? He wants to pull the trigger, he's been thinking about it harder than anything in his life. He came into this house with a purpose, and she's tiptoeing and destroying that purpose. "You could've told him the truth..."

"No..." Corrin shakes her head. "I abandoned Ganondorf in the city... thinking he'd die, but instead he decided to live and flourish, to spite me..." A sigh comes from the president's lips, as if this is such a bothersome conversation to be having, talking about her impeding doom, her plans for the entire country with herself at the helm. "Detroit secedes, I have a dead Syrenet squad member on my hands, and a country in ruins. The farthest thing from my mind was telling Shulk anything. You would've done the same."

"No I wouldn't of."

"Don't lie to me Roy," she gives him a smile, a devilish smile with confections dripping off of her lips, like a swirl of icing laced with poison.

"And Shulk? Did you intend for that to happen?"

There's a pause, between them, a moment where an insect slows down in amber. Corrin looks at the floor, biting on the inside of her cheek. She had to have cared for him, Roy wants to rationalize, looking at her behavior. However, she's not even showing remorse, when he mentions his death, by _his_ hands, and all Corrin can say is ' _shame..._ ' and trail off with it, as if his potential - Shulk's potential - has been wasted, which it very well was.

"No," Corrin says, and Roy believes she's telling the truth; she wouldn't need to lie about it. "He fell into my arms, a broken, wounded man by more than just Fiora. One night we got too drunk and the rest is history."

"Or so you tell yourself," the redhead tightens the grip on the pistol. "You let it get too far. You allowed it to happen."

"The sex was great," she laughs to herself, clapping her hands. "Far better than what Cloud could even muster, and they were around the same age. I liked it," Corrin shrugs her shoulders, admitting it. "The power. The ability to use him however I wanted. It was just sex, Roy, in the beginning, and then he latched onto me like a leech. A leech that I couldn't kill, because I needed him."

"Is that what you say to yourself at night to keep the demons at bay?" Roy taunts her, tilting his head.

Corrin ignores the question, instead giving him a glare. All he is doing is canting off of her reasoning, her truth, while he is venomous and poisonous, and doing what she's been doing to him all along. "Glass Ceiling didn't come into play until I learned about this whole rebel insurgency thing in the Midwest. Then, when Sheik and her Midwestern team destroys the Oklahoma City project, I knew I had an insurrection on my hands, a domestic terrorism that needed to be dealt with. The Needle was always in the back of my head, Roy, that I could use it to my advantage. This wasn't a scapegoat. It was a means to an end."

"You're the domestic terrorist..." even as the redhead admits that, he regrets it, the words sounding sulfuric, burning his tongue and his throat. Sheik is equally surmounted to the blame of what has happened to the nation over the last few months, not just the wicked silverette sitting across from him in her chair. "You had Shulk perform all these atrocities so you could get closer and closer to the Needle..."

"It was a win-win situation. Even a blind man could see it," Corrin places a hand against the side of her face, her pinkie finger dragging against the pale skin, fast and quick, like the draw of a blade. "Fiora was murdered by a Detroit entity. I bring the city turned country back into the fold, Shulk's wife's killer is destroyed, the rebel scum is wiped off of the face of the Earth, Syrenet is established and stays established, and I am still president of the United States, with the Needle at my disposal or not."

"I don't believe you."

"But you do. You always do. See... I was meant to be here, to be president. I've always wanted it, and I am never denied anything. It wasn't going to be one or the other, Roy, not in the end. I needed both outcomes, both events. All of this just to ensure we lived! I wouldn't have Syrenet in shambles, the rebels living, and me not establish my dominance unless all three happened! Those who got in the way of those three things..." with a sniffle of dismissal, "I wouldn't need anymore."

"So that's what they were to you," Roy's voice is ever so quiet. "Mac. Ness. Your husband... obstacles?"

"In the long run, yes. Cloud wanted me to stop Syrenet entirely... to throw in the towel? To let a group of uncivilized monsters decide the course of the United States? I didn't need him. All I had to do was give Shulk the order. To give Shulk a reason, and he listened. Mac was the same... but I didn't intend on that either. He simply was in the wrong place at the wrong time... and all I had to do was give the order. Ness went digging in places he didn't belong," Corrin flashes Roy a look. "Just like you've been digging in places that you don't belong."

"Shulk trusted you," the redhead swallows heavily. "He told me up there that you loved you... that he was your best friend. And you were lying to him. That's all you were doing. Just lying to him."

"I was protecting him," Corrin corrects Roy. "I was saving Shulk from himself. If his depression didn't kill him, alcohol would. And if alcohol didn't kill him, a rebel would."

"You killed him."

"I did nothing of the sort."

"He was my friend, and you killed him! You destroyed him!" Roy shouts at her.

"He was never your friend!" she stands up at this, startling the redhead back up against the wall, not expecting such an insurgency of force and anger. "You didn't know him like I did. Shulk wasn't anything without Fiora... without some woman in his life. Without one, he was weak. You wouldn't have ever been his equal. And now he's dead, because _you_ killed him, because you denied America its glory!"

He wants to scream, he wants to cuss, and he thinks of doing it, but Roy knows it won't succeed to anything. He's going to be arguing with some brick wall now, and that's all he's getting done. Stalling, perhaps, but stalling for Sheik to come in and save the day? As if.

Enough child's play.

Roy levels the gun back at her, Corrin sitting down faster than any movement she's ever made in her life. "I didn't come here to talk to you, Corrin. Robin and Snake prefer the justice way, back to D.C, with a judge, and a trial. I wanted to carpet bomb this place, leave you to burn. I'm asking you, here, come with me."

He knows what the answer will be, that this entire idea of going to retrieve the devil out of Hell's cave is somehow going to work, it is futile. The president shakes her head, locking her jaw. "Not a fat chance in the world am I going to kiss the feet of my doddering vice president. No way in hell am I letting the valor of the American people decide my fate."

"I am only going to ask you this once, Madam President..." For a strange spike, perhaps out of respect, despite there being none to be had, he says the functional title anyways.

"I am the president of the United States. I am not going to be dragged out of here and forced to submit."

"Then there's only one other option left..."

"If that involves you turning around and walking out of this home, and leaving me be, then you're right." Corrin crosses her arms. "You don't have it in you to shoot me. I'm not Shulk, who has tried fighting back. I am simply denying you the allowing of my death."

"You don't have the authority to make that call to me, anymore, _Corrin,_ " there goes the dropping of the titles again.

"I was meant to rule!" she yells at him. "I was meant to be queen of this country and all who live in it! No matter what you or anyone else would say in this moment, I was meant to be in power! FOREVER!"

He goes to lift the gun back at eye level, simply shoot one straight between the eyes, no matter how bloody it would be. A loud crash and some stifled swearing, however, disturbs the radical quiet. The two turn their attention down to a hallway where the commotion came from, and soon, appearing into view, causing Roy's heart to sink into his shoes, are two Secret Service agents, one holding Sheik in a headlock, the other pointing his own gun at Roy... brought to a standstill. The three of them are pretty banged up, and Roy assumes that means the other agents Pit had highlighted in the building are dead as well... which is what Sheik must've been doing all this time.

Corrin pushes herself further into the chair she had been sitting in, Roy righting himself, eyes falling off the prize and back to the two agents. Two to one, with a collateral in line... he's faced worse odds. He is caught off guard by these people, he doesn't notice that the president's fingers fall close to the black briefcase resting up against the chair. Sheik is worse for wear, with several cuts lining her arms, a bit of blood caking her face, the other agents bruised in the face, the one holding the gun carrying a limp.

"Roy..." she whispers.

"Sheik," he regards back.

The agent holding the blonde around by the neck shifts his weight some. "Caught her trying to sneak into the back side of the home. She killed the other four, but we stopped her." He reaches into his pocket, throwing something out at the president. A crumpled up piece of parchment paper... and Roy realizes its a birth certificate: _Sheik's_ birth certificate. She is going to tell her mother, Corrin, her identity, and then kill her. Seems poetic. "Found this on her. Doesn't seem to be comprisable."

Corrin flashes a look between the two individuals. "She yours?" gesturing to Roy, before picking it up and looking at its contents.

"She's mine."

"Hello, mother," Sheik says, without warning, to Corrin.

The silverette doesn't flinch, given her credit. She clucks her tongue, throwing away the identification. "Last time I checked, I don't have any children."

"But-" Sheik starts.

"Even if you were," she snaps her gaze towards the blonde vigilante, "Even if you were, somehow, my Samantha Gladwell, all you are now is some rebel scum, the same I was trying to destroy. The same I still _intend_ on destroying."

Roy notices the gunman starting to advance on him, getting closer, definitely to take his own weapon; _as if_ the redhead is going to let that happen. "Nothing like that is going to happen," he says. "You're going to be arrested, remember?"

"I thought I made it clear the first time. I was meant to reign. I am going to do just that..." she then reaches over and grabs the object that had been sitting up against the chair all this time, the thing Roy hardly noticed and didn't even try to ask what it had been.

She unlatches the buckles on the front, flipping it open, and turning it around to show Roy, a smile dancing on her porcelain lips. He doesn't need to see the contents inside to know what she's been holding onto. To what caused Robin's hands to wrinkle and as she wrung them, fear play on her face. Or what causes Snake to stifle a curse, spinning on agents and asking how the _fuck_ something so necessary could fall into her hands.

He hadn't thought of this. All the color in his face drains, his already pale face going translucence like a ghost. Sheik sees this, trying to shift in the foe's grip.

"Roy? What- what is it?"

"The nuclear football..."

Roy knows what he's staring at, and that's very well the end of America and perhaps the entire world. In her hands, with all the massive firepower she could ever need to unleash the nuclear weapons America owns... upon themselves or upon others.

"If I was destined to reign," Corrin says, "Either I reign, or no one does."

"You wouldn't..." Roy's voice barely rises over a whisper.

"Let's not get into what I wouldn't and would do."

"You'd be willing to kill all of us instead of going to jail?" Sheik's voice is one of incredulousness.

"If I am to be the queen of the ashes, I will be."

"You're insane..." the redhead cannot keep his eyes off of the nuclear football.

"I'm a visionary."

Roy stands there, stuck, unmoving, his mouth wanting to say words but he's unable to. She's won, technically? Hasn't she? There's no way she wouldn't be able to. All she has to do is input a code... and there it is, the end of America as Roy knows it. It could be anywhere in the continental United States, a force that size to kill millions of people. If he shoots her, then the gunman with his weapon trained on him shoots, and Roy's dead. He could sacrifice Sheik, a thought that occurs to him for a fleeting second, but he's hit with shame. She's still alongside him for this and giving her up is sickening and unlike him.

Sheik uses the moment of distraction to create one herself. Using the heel of her foot, she raises it up and slams it down on the Secret Service agent holding her in the headlock. This brunt force catches the guard off by surprise, causing him to let go for a moment, dropping her to the floor. Roy whirls in her direction, perhaps to help her, but he's stuck between Corrin and Sheik. The other gunman, the one trailing Roy's movements, leaps forward to grab Corrin by the back of her shirt. Sheik, on the floor, retrieves her knife which is stuck to the Secret Service agent's pant leg that held onto her. She sends the blade into his chest, before grabbing him by the shirt and pushing back with all of her might, running into the wall so she can push the rest of the blade into his chest. He goes down gurgling, choking on blood, face forever imprisoned in an expression of pain.

The other agent has latched onto Corrin, pulling her back. Roy leaps forward to grab the nuclear football out of her hands, the silverette holding onto the suitcase as strong as she can. The president relents against being pulled back, struggling with the redhead over the football. He manages to snag it first, chucking it over his head by accident, the suitcase sailing over his head to the ground. Corrin's eyes widen to the size of saucers, launching herself out of the grip of the Secret Service agent and onto Roy. The agent who had held her cusses, advancing, before having to take cover as Sheik retrieves the gun from the dead man's waistband, firing at him.

Corrin is surprisingly strong, which Roy hadn't necessarily expected, he wrestling with her. She turns her hands into claws, trying to rip his eyes out of their sockets. She swipes down, one of her nails snagging onto his skin, drawing blood. He has one hand by the crook of her elbow, pushing upwards, trying to throw her off. Corrin's face is twisted into that of animalistic rage, Roy starting to sweat, expelling a shaky breath. He pushes her off of him, she hitting the front of the seat she had been sitting in. He flips onto his stomach, crawling towards the football.

The president gets to her feet, running over to get a knife from a collection sitting on top of the granite countertop. She withdrawals a steak knife of considerable size, before turning, unleashing a cry of anger. Had she not yelled, Roy would've not been alerted to her then running straight at him, the wicked blade angled downwards at him. When she thrusts, Roy, thinking fast, latching onto the suitcase, wrenches it around and over his face to protect him. The blade goes straight through the leather material, poking slightly out the other side. The football is ruined... the weapon stabbing through the compartmentalized digital computer system, the sheet with the nuclear launch codes, all of it ruined. Corrin screams again, diving the blade down through the same hole, extending her reach.

Sheik, over in the corner, is hiding behind a couch, the other Secret Service agent firing at her whenever she peeks her blonde hair over the top or around the side. She has the knife still strapped to her side now, but this is going to be a war of automatic firing weapons, not melee tactics. There's a caesura in the firing, which means the other man's clip must be empty and he has to reload lest he make himself open. She jumps on top of the couch, before leaping on top of the man's shoulders. He expects this, grabbing her quickly by the legs and swinging downwards, causing Sheik to slam into the floor.

With a sharp intake, she loses her breath, the air expelling out in one whoosh. He gets on top of her, hands going for her eyes to push in and kill her. Sheik grabs onto his arms, trying to stop his hands when she wrenches one arm in her direction, into her mouth, biting down as hard as she can onto his hand. He screams, wrenching his hand free, it coming out with a good inch or so of skin bitten off on the side where his thumb would be. Sheik, using his pain as a distraction, searches for her gun, which had fallen to the floor when he threw her onto it himself. She rapidly fires two shots between the eyes for good measure, the agent slumping over, dead.

Meanwhile, Roy ducks underneath another swing of the knife from Corrin, bringing his arms up into an 'X' formation before the blade hits his sternum. He kicks his legs up, a foot colliding with Corrin's crotch, a low blow indeed. She howls, downing to one knee, Roy about to send a bullet into her brain when his hands ignite on fire once more, the pain far stronger than any other before it up on the Needle. He screams likewise, the copper wire underneath his pinkie and ring fingers brightening up, as if they are getting surrounded by a strong, harsh light.

Corrin, recovering aptly from a kick to the private parts, jumps a forward slice at Roy, missing barely past his arm. It catches him off guard, causing him to fall back onto the floor, her straddling him, swinging the knife down towards his Adam's apple. He blocks it with one arm, the other trying to grab the handle as he wrestles with her over the weapon, she hissing through clenched teeth. Roy lifts his head back up against the floor, his Adam's apple bobbing up, the blade ever so close to it.

He's about to be stabbed through the throat when Sheik, shakily holding her gun, fires a bullet into Corrin's shoulder.

The president screams in pain, dropping the knife, it cutting off a curl of Roy's hair. He makes his way to his feet, shakily, breathing heavily, Corrin backing up away from them, clutching her now bleeding shoulder. He retrieves his gun, it having been discarded to the floor, aiming it at her. He can read her mind, Corrin's mind that is, like the cornered animal that she is, where fear and desperation clog their thoughts and hearts and minds. She hisses, scrambling for the knife.

He doesn't hesitate, his next bullet going into her gut.

Corrin freezes, gingerly placing a hand up against her stomach. When her free hand comes back tinted copper at the fingertips, she lets out a shaky gasp, locking eyes with Roy and Sheik, before stumbling back against the wall, a trail of blood following her in a diverted wake. Sheik lowers her weapon, advancing slowly, Roy behind her. All of the rage in his veins dissipates slowly, as if it is exhuming itself out of his body by itself. All he can feel, now, in this moment in time is sympathy. Disappointment. Shame.

He leans down next to her left, her daughter on her right.

"It's over, Corrin. Stop..." he whispers.

Corrin looks at him, head unable to stay still as she's shaking so much. Even though it is a bullet wound to the shoulder, and one to the abdomen, even trained military men do not always survive something of that caliber... so for Corrin, who has refused to be led into a cell for the rest of her days, there's no hope for her. These are her final moments.

She doesn't speak to Roy, though, instead going over to Sheik, lifting one of her two bloodied hands up against the other girl's cheek. Sheik, for all her credit, allows this, not flinching. "I'm sorry Cloud and I gave you away..." Corrin whispers.

The blonde is an unmoving block of solid emotion. "That's in the past, mom..." she even calls her mother.

"You can fight..."

"Apparently so could you."

Corrin gives the ghost of a smile. "You're beautiful, Samantha..."

Sheik closes her eyes, swallowing, and then Roy watches as a tear slides down the girl's cheek. "It's Sheik, mom. No longer Samantha."

"You're beautiful, _Sheik._ "

The girl gets to her feet, moving away from the president, who has now returned her attention to Roy. He watches Sheik go to the two dead Secret Service agents, she having been actually the one to kill all of those remaining in the house. The nuclear football lays ruined and in tatters from the blade going through it, the blood stained weapon resting back in the old place where the suitcase had been when Roy entered the house.

Roy makes eye contact with the president. "I'm sorry you had to die this way..." He means it. She should've been hitting age ninety, surrounded by loved ones, with a ceremony done by the U.S government then, to have people speak in her honor. It's weird, to think now, what will happen. She's going to be immortalized, perhaps, molded with a golden statue, all because she's done too many wrong things to people.

"Don't..." she gives a weak cough, lifting her hand. A more wracking cough comes over her, more copper spilling out of her mouth, gushing out of the wound. Then, with a pause, "Syrenet wasn't always bad, you know, Roy."

"I believe you."

"I wanted to help people, but they resisted. Eventually I didn't want to have to ask for their permission... so I wouldn't."

"Shulk wanted to help people too. But you got the message lost in translation," Roy feels awkward saying this. He wants to leave her here, to leave her behind, let her bleed out onto the tile floor and the wooded floor in this beautiful home.

"I suppose I'll get to apologize to him myself soon enough..."

Roy nods, though to what, he does not know. "I'm sure he'll take it in stride, the best he can."

The color in Corrin's face is starting to dwindle down, the warmness of her blood passing over Roy's shoes. "You remember what I told you a couple nights ago in Detroit? Up on that rooftop?"

"That everyone's fake," he says.

She gives another ghost of a smile. "It doesn't matter the politician or current president. Me. Robin. Snake. Midna... doesn't matter. We're all fake, we'll _always_ be fake."

"I'll make sure to keep it in mind, Corrin."

The silverette bowls over with another coughing fit, more scarlet coating her already putridly dyed fingertips. "Please help me up. I don't want to die inside of the house. I want- I want to see the sunlight..."

He wants to deny her that wish, to shoot her one more time perhaps, let the blood drain faster once again out of another pore, another orifice for humans to die from being ripped apart, but Roy lets his demonic thoughts run on a wild spree without taking action. Sheik's presence behind him is noted, perhaps one of awkward silence, but she's already said her goodbyes to a mother she never knew in being kind; she only knew her mother in a monstrous light, painted and depicted by cave paintings to be a monster, which she very well is one.

Roy picks up the dying Corrin in his arms, her body weight not all too heavy, he making his way out onto the front porch, past all the Christmas decorations still lacing the white painted wood. Her head hangs low off of his right arm, her feet dangling from his left. Sheik trudges out onto the porch, remaining at the front door when he goes down to the lawn.

He lays her down onto the emerald field of grass, placing her next to a single daisy, a picturesque place to die. The sky is an agglomeration of hazard colors, dancing in a fiery movement of carnation pinks, sunburst oranges, delicate azures and soft periwinkles... while the sun sets beneath the sky. Corrin's gaze is glassy, mouth parted open some in exultation.

"For years... I ruled this. These skies..." she whispers.

"Yes ma'am... you did."

"Forever and ever. Forever and ever... forever and ever..." Corrin says, her voice trailing off, her voice starting to quiet down, her chest rising and falling, it weakening with every new breath until it ceases. With a last expiation of air, the silverette's head goes slack in his hands. Her arms, which had been wrapped around his right elbow slowly sink towards the grass.

Her eyes stare at a blind white, a nothingness on the horizon which everyone who will ever exist will meet someday, some faster than others.

Everything goes calm for a second.

President Corrin Etch is dead.

Roy sits back, now with Corrin's body unmoving, he resting on his legs, having crouched to his knees. It still isn't over, with what Snake had said, about Sheik, who remained behind. He still has to get her, somehow to custody, despite turning herself in. He turns around, gun still in holster, to see if she's still there on the porch.

Gone.

Sheik Braring vanishes without him even realizing it, having been caught up in the president's passing.

He looks back at the other woman's body, as if she is now sleeping peacefully, gone to some other place, a place far beyond. Where she'll meet Shulk, she'll encounter Ganondorf... Mac, her husband, even Link... all these people who have come into contact with her and all those she has wronged, those she has righted in the past. Roy begins to cry, tears starting to fall from his face and onto the grass below.

He cries for Shulk, and the wrong ideological dreams inside his head. He cries for Detroit, for a people who are now leaderless, many buildings destroyed, their infrastructure annihilated, slaughtered for a cause that is correct in thought, wrong in execution. He cries for Marth, injured in a hospital bed who will never walk again. Roy is sobbing for Ness, a piece of technology stuck in a time loop of blackness, insurrection, for digging too deep. He cries for Ike, his body now being flown to Arlington, though not a veteran in the typical mindset, dead by a friend, betrayed in his last moments. He cries for Cloud, who couldn't see the evil he is married to. He even cries for Corrin, someone twisting the knife before turning it on themselves.

He even sobs for himself.

However, there's no one higher that he cries for than Fiora and her unborn baby, wrapped up in all of this treachery, with a child who will never see the light of day.

The redhead curls in on himself, his sobbing echoing into the sky, as Syrenet's cornerstone, and the president of the United States lays dead at his feet.

The house has been thrown down.

Syrenet has come to an end.

* * *

 **Well, to say I am crying ladies and gentlemen, that is an understatement. I don't know what it is with me and death scenes that gets me so emotional, even for villains. However, that is the end of Chapter #38: Throwing Down the House.**

 **Corrin Etch, the president of the United States, the true mastermind behind everything that has come to pass over the course of this story, is dead. I am sitting here numb, her death having been in the first draft and all of the subsequent drafts to come. The event of her death being here in the end was conceptualized from the very beginning, as was Shulk's, despite all the additions, despite all the rewriting of the plot. Even though I mentioned loving Shulk, Corrin herself is a character that I never thought I'd enjoy as much as I did... but I don't think there'll be another characterization like hers that I will ever create again, least for fanfiction, not in the capacity that was hers. She was a primary reason why I even wrote this story, like I mentioned last chapter one of the four characters I had even thought about with this piece (Roy, Lucas, and Shulk being the other three).**

 **She now joins the rank of dead characters Link, Ness, Cloud, Mac, Ganondorf, and Shulk... the only lady in the bunch (given, we only had _four_ female characters, dammit Smash, get new female characters to use!) and I am saddened, but there's no way she was going to get out of this alive with all that she's done and was going to do in order to stay in power.**

 **Sheik escaped, using Corrin's death as a distraction... and that is where her storyline also comes to a close, as Roy is distracted, and she uses that as an opportune moment.**

 **The fight scene with her, Roy, Corrin, and the other two Secret Service agents went a lot better than I hoped, since you know me and my action, but hell... Ike, Shulk, and Corrin all wiped out in the matter of two chapters and 29000 words.**

 **I hope you've enjoyed reading this story with Corrin in it, and to stick around for the last two chapters of this story, as we're coming to a close. I can't believe we're almost there, ladies and gentlemen.**

 **Please, I hope you review, I am going to be dying to hear what you guys say, as I am very invested in ya'll commentating and on what you say. How do you think this will close? There's a lot of loose ends to tie up, other questions to answer, and a speculation to arise, but we'll get there in due time. I hope to see you all soon for Chapter #39: Project Code Black. We're near the end, guys, I can't believe it. Thank you all so much for reading. I love you guys more than you know. Have an amazing night! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	39. Chapter 39: Project Code Black

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #39: Project Code Black, the finale before the finale and oh my god you guys I am so hyped I am so pumped I can't believe we're almost here nearly a full two years later I want to cry and this is all one sentence I don't care! So... my plan for these last two chapters are quite straightforward (six scenes each, 3k for each scene, means 18k a chapter, but I reckon I am going to have a few scenes shorter than 3k; this is just a heads up, there's a lot of things to tie together) Review replies!**

 **CrashGuy01- I am surprised to see that you're happy Corrin's gone! I wasn't expecting open arms, but man... I was kinda hoping for an appreciation of her character lol, unless I am the only one who ever liked her. Sheik did escape, and the plot points she drives have ended, but she's still around; don't think for a second I dropped her. I know I knock myself for action sequences, but I do think I am definitely getting better; it's the one aspect that's always improving (you should've read some of my old crap; it was** ** _terrible!_** **)**

 **Derick Lindsay- I know you never expressed love for Corrin either, but wow, you took it a step further. Corrin is yet another tragic villain; she wanted to help people so badly that she was going to force it on others then since she's had the outrageous idea that she's never denied anything. And my god that Sheik comment! I am so sorry to say this... but she's not dead. However, I wouldn't leave her alive if it wasn't for a good reason. Pit finally got rid of his wings; I am a huge lover for Pit and symbolism (i.e Icarus Chronicle, where he's the lead character). You should read it if you want material of mine to read, it's a bit long too!**

 **Enjoy the chapter, #39: Project Code Black.**

* * *

Sunlight filters through the drawn curtains, lapsing in pools on the floor, halcyon puddles for children to splash in. The room is quite large, the main hall for the Capitol building, Congress not in session. Many people are milling around the floor, cameramen, newscasters, journalists, tourists... and all the commander of Syrenet. Standing by the back wall is Roy, alongside Snake, Midna, and Pit, among others that Roy does not recognize.

In the center, where there are cameras trailed on the Chief Justice and Vice President Robin, or rather _President_ Robin Wyndel. Snake has a huge grin on his face, arms crossed over his chest, Midna rolling her eyes. Roy takes a deep breath, anxiety for being on camera sinking beneath the blue of his bloodstream. The Chief Justice is dressed in his black robes that go down to the floor, gray-haired and spectacles adorning his face. Robin is dressed in a finer shade of blue, teal almost, a cut-off dress that is brighter than the blue of the carpets on the Justice Building.

Due to security reasons, the inauguration is done inside, versus outside, and there's yet to be an official announcement _just_ yet to the public. Robin will be unable to sit down in a renovated, update Oval Office for the White House for about another three weeks, damage still being assessed by all the intelligence agencies, the famed manor being rebuilt ever since Corrin blew it up, an expression of defiance, that the Etch administration would not back down to the rules of society. However, Robin knew better; she actually loved the American people and wanted them to love her back.

"Is this the first time since the 1920's that we haven't had a presidential hearing out front of the Capitol?" Roy whispers, hoping he isn't _too_ loud.

Snake frowns, leaning in. "I'm pretty sure Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in on Air Force One, after Kennedy was shot in Dallas."

"So, we're pretty much breaking a long set history of tradition, though, aren't we?" Midna adds to the discussion, hitching down her dress. "All inaugurations after that were done outside and because of our precious Corrin, here we are."

"I wouldn't say her name again," the FBI director advises the fellow agent, gripping her by the elbow. "Not in front of all the cameras and journalists."

Roy breaks away from hearing what should and should not be said. He looks down at his hands, though, after Midna mentioned the last president, another woman with silver hair who'll be infamous in U.S history, the only president known to target her own citizens and try to use them as leverage, as lemmings in a technological ego war. He remembers what it felt like holding her in his arms, holding the dying Corrin with the gun wound to the abdomen, with her glassy stare whitening as the seconds passed. How he cried over her body, and when the dust settled, when all things were said and done, he couldn't even bring himself to do his last requirement.

Sheik Braring vanishes without a trace, and three and a half weeks later since the whole bringing down the house, she hasn't been found. The country is in a weird state of limbo for those three weeks, having to explain the crazy travesty train of news coming from all over the country. Detroit being bombed by a rebel group, Chicago abandoned, the president allegedly blowing up the White House, and then the very same president being announced dead... Roy's surprised the government hadn't collapsed, but due to Robin, Snake, and other political officials and their wits, the country's been standing still.

It's almost ironic, now that Corrin has been eliminated, whatever urges of the Western and Midwestern rebel groups have been quelled, silenced, destroyed... whatever action Roy can think of, things have happened. Rebel cohorts turning themselves in by the hundreds, calling out names of leaders, like those who cosigned with Sheik to attack Oklahoma City. The attack in Portland, that Roy had read about in the news while in the hospital... he remembers hearing in Link and Sheik's conversation that she had nothing to do with it, when actually... she _did,_ it's where her rebel army got the ability to use RPG's in the Chicago brawl. She had lied straight through her teeth, and everyone believed her. It wasn't a surprise, given who her mother had been.

Corrin's laid to rest in her home town of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the group of five survivors - minus Marth, still in the hospital at the time - go the service, and Robin actually _cries,_ her head bowed, and she pulls out some journal that Roy knows nothing about, jotting down something quick, short, and easy. Shulk is put to rest a week prior to Corrin, shortly after the silverette's death, but there's no corpse. Roy assumes, after he pushed Shulk off of the Needle, his body had to have melted or evaporated or _something_ in the fire, sulfur, ash, and smoke, as there's been no recoverable body. Despite being home from a different town than Fiora, he's buried alongside his wife and his unborn child, and there's nothing condemning on his gravestone when there's time for the inscription.

It reads, _'Killed in action due to loyalty',_ and Roy knows this message to be true. It just happened to be the wrong _type_ of loyalty.

He wishes he could have that sort of blind allegiance, to someone, _to something._ Despite how much he thinks he might like Midna, if the fellow redhead starts sprouting crazy shit like destroying glass ceilings or using Detroit's Needle or killing a member of some group he's affiliated with, he is going to have to draw the line.

The redhead feels like someone's staring bullets at him, and he flicks his eyes away from Robin, the soon new to be commander-in-chief, over to a corner of the Syrenet commanders assembled. The main twenty-three are present, as Roy realizes with a sudden sadness, that Shulk is gone, Ike is gone, and Marth is in the hospital, probably never going to ever turn back to Syrenet. Alpha, Beta, and Charlie squads are all out of commission for the time being, and Roy doesn't think the position to take Shulk's old spot is going to be his to claim, despite being 'next in line'.

After Corrin's death, there's a week time limit for all the Syrenet groups currently posted around the world to get their shtick together and return home to America, investigations placed underneath everyone to see if there are traces or hints of Corrin's treachery rampant through the rest. Surprisingly, and this is something that leaves Roy staying awake up at night, looking up at the plaster on his ceiling, is that there are no suspicions dredged forward by any committee or intelligence agency; Syrenet's members besides Shulk, who can no longer be put on trial, are clean, perfect slates. It's almost remarkable, as terrible as it sounds to say it, that Corrin, with Shulk's help, had an entire operation unknown to the whole agency, the rest of the presidency, and a majority of the American people.

There's a trio of people looking at Roy rather pointedly, causing goosebumps to rise on his skin, chills to slide down his back. It's easy enough to assume that every Syrenet member knows what Roy's involvement has been with the president and Shulk and everything. It seems that the other twenty-three squads, letter 'D' through letter 'Z' are reserved for more global things stretching beyond North America, and the main three - Alpha, Beta, Charlie - favorited, which has always left a bitter taste in everyone else's mouths.

It's two guys and a girl giving him the eye-down and Roy noticeably fixes his stance to try and ignore them. The first gentleman is lanky, dressed all in green - he could be Link's counterpart - a hat obstructing his eyes, but there isn't an air of hostility to him, although he is a Syrenet personnel. The other guy is a bit taller, muscles bulking underneath the suit. He's wearing sunglasses despite the ceremony being inside where sunlight barely creeps beyond the curtains, and there's a strange falcon symbol etched onto his suit. The lady is as tall as the second guy, dressed all in black, black lipstick on her face, and a coldness that seems to pierce through Roy, just like Corrin's would. She eyes him for one more moment, before returning her own attention to the center of the main hall.

The Chief Justice, after saying a quiet word to the vice president, and apparently having the clear from the camera crews, withdrew a bible from his robes, placing it out so Robin could place her right hand against the cover, raising her left hand. There's a flash of gold, and Roy realizes that she's wearing a cross around her neck. He's surprised to not have noticed it before, as he remembers Shulk, Marth, or Snake - it had been one of the three guys - mentioning she's religious, but that she never made it some huge deal because Robin Wyndel didn't like alienation, and there's certainly one way to alienate people in the political climate of America.

"Before he or she enter on the Execution of this Office, she shall take the following Oath of Affirmation," the Chief Justice says, with a booming voice that echoes around the stone pillars. It's a historic moment; this _always_ is an historic moment. "Vice President Robin Wyndel, please repeat after me."

Robin stands up straighter, as if someone stuck a thumbtack between her shoulder blades, the glow in her eyes brightening. Pit leans in towards the other three, grinning. "Well, here we go..."

"I, Robin Wyndel, do solemnly swear..." the Chief Justice starts.

"I, Robin Wyndel, do solemnly swear..." she parrots back.

"That I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States."

"That I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States."

"And will, to the best of my ability..."

"And will, to the best of my ability..." something in Robin's demeanor seems to change, her happy face switching to a more serious tone. Not that taking the oath of the presidency _isn't_ a serious affair, it still matters a great deal that there can be a bit of joy in the oath.

"Preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States..." the Justice recites.

"Preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States..." Robin says.

"So help me God."

"So help me God," and Robin's shoulders seem to rise a bit more.

The Chief Justice lowers the bible, Robin lowering her hand. "Robin Wyndel, I hereby name you the 77th president of the United States."

The two shakes hands, the pictures snap, and Robin is now the 77th president of the United States, following the succession of another president due to their death, resignation, or other complications. It is another historic moment, as, despite there being another female president prior to Corrin - Roy recalls that he had just been born when the first woman president, a senator from Wyoming, is elected - between the two silverettes, they're the first female to female order of presidents in any head governmental role in the world.

After there are the thousand flashes of the cameras, Snake is the first to rush forward and give Robin a hug, she being the only child in her family, no husband, no children... in everyone involved with the U.S government, he's the closest she's got.

Midna moves up to his side. "Aren't you proud of her?" she asks.

"Of course I am," he agrees, crossing his arms. "She's gonna be a fantastic president."

"She's got a lot to clean up." Against Snake's best wishes, since Midna has never been known to literally follow the rules, "After Corrin, I'm surprised we're all still standing."

"We're gonna have to help in that as well," Roy says, looking at her, to which she gives him a confused expression. "We need to also exert damage control, since what happened. We're not faultless."

Midna locks her jaw, clucking her tongue. "It's like a stain that won't go away. It was under our noses the entire time, too."

A moment of silence passes between them, as reporters and journalists begin shouting at the top of their lungs all sorts of questions. A few shout out the old name of Corrin Etch, a name already to be forgotten if history is to truly be followed, something quite interesting in how that works, but Robin only seems to go for the questions filled with empathy or curiosity, such as ' _What's going through your head as the 77th president?_ '

"Has Sheik made contact with you?" he whispers, looking down at the floor.

"No. You?"

"No."

"Good," Midna hisses through clenched teeth. "I'm gonna kill that bitch the next time I see her."

"She might not be your life to take."

"She certainly won't be yours either."

Midna nods at the congregation before them. "This might draw her out of the woodwork, though. You can't tell with her."

"How'd you guys even get to know each other?"

"Waiting tables."

"Waiting tables?" Roy raises an eyebrow. He didn't believe that answer for a minute.

She laughs. "Not everyone has a high-end job, Roy. We were simply going through our degrees together, me in criminal justice, hers in psychology or something. Next thing you know, we have code names for each other and then she starts spouting all this nonsense about Syrenet and I passed it off as mumbo jumbo. I was in the FBI at this point and yet I never thought..." there's a slight pause, and she bites down on her tongue.

He leans in next to her, gripping her by shoulder with warmth. "You had no idea she'd have done the things she did. Don't beat yourself up about them, okay?"

"How many lives would we have saved had I told Snake my suspicions the moment she messaged me about Oklahoma City? Maybe Marth would be still walking, or maybe Mac would still be here, or maybe you wouldn't have had to shoot Corrin in the stomach..." she says, all in a ramble. He is about to shush her when Midna leaves the conversation hanging on that thread, walking away, a sob catching in her throat.

He watches her go, heart lamenting the loss. There'll never be a perfect world for he or anyone else involved in the last three months of Syrenet's craziness.

Roy resumes the festivities after Midna walks away; he continues clapping, clapping all the while Robin shakes their hands, bowing her heads, smiling... and graduating a step above what her old paygrade used to be. He looks back over at the trio of Syrenet commanders that had been staring at him. He didn't know their names, except for the fact that they lead the Echo, Sierra, and Yankee squads - E, S, and Y respectively - where now, only the woman is eyeing him. A ghost of a smile, thin lipped and all, forms on the woman's face. She actually blows him a kiss, before disappearing into the crowd, as if she wasn't ever there.

He raises an eyebrow.

It looks like his time in D.C got a _whole_ lot more interesting.

* * *

Midna is chewing on the tip of a pen ever since she arrived into Snake's office, which had been about twenty minutes ago on the hour. She's swiveling back and forth in a chair, opposite her boss, who's been looking even more tired than she's ever seen him. It's been four days since Robin's sworn in as the new president, and changes are a coming, which she can feel on the wind, it settling beneath her skin.

Snake has his computer out, clacking away at the keyboard whilst simultaneously chatting with her, though the conversation hasn't gotten all too pointed yet. She knows that he knows that she knows what this conversation is going to be about, and it's serious for one reason; Snake's wearing his glasses. The famous Mr. Karlo, director of the FBI for the last nineteen years, he's not someone who needs glasses to see, and when he does wear them, it isn't because he's lost a contact. It's because he has hurt _a-coming,_ and it looks like Midna is going to be on the blunt end of this scolding. She's been there a time or twenty, for lewd contact, or swearing, or abuse of a few powers her badge can grant her, but again, she isn't a rule follower.

He withdrawals away from the computer screen, pushing back his seat a bit, dropping his glasses onto the table, pinching the bridge of his nose and taking a loud, elaborate sigh. Midna's toes curl inwardly at what's to come next.

"With what has happened in the country, with Corrin, it's safe to say that the citizens of America are on high alert."

"I can't blame them," she says, and then to herself, " _And I can't blame myself, for the things I've done, the things I've said. For the things I didn't say..._ "

"The trust that Corrin caused them to lose..." Snake pulls at his neck tie. "I don't know if we're going to be able to win it back. Any of it. Not a single semblance of it."

"And, again, I can't blame them."

There's a pause, the FBI director locking his jaw, searching her face. For what, she doesn't know. A slip-up of emotion perhaps, but she's an FBI agent just like him, knowing all the tricks of the trade, knowing the warning signs where something smells rotten, something rotten in Denmark, but she can hide just as easily. However, there's no reason for her to lie. The conversation she's having with him is currently being recorded, via a recorder placed just a few inches from a desk lamp that stands atop a clutter of papers, important and not important.

"This also means that the agencies themselves need to be able to trust each other, and those inside it."

"I understand," Midna nods along, the good little soldier that she is. Her mouth feels like its stuffed with cotton, the saliva drying up in a matter of seconds, and her arms clinging to the armrests a bit, her body tensing. Snake notes this with the raise of his eyebrows, the slight furrow of his brow following it. She mentally curses herself.

After being mistreated by her piece of shit husband, with the bulimia and the constantly needing to look pretty, she always had the deep down desire to want to have justice delivered to the crapshoots like her husband, the Mr. Veracruz who cannot even lift a candle to the candor and honor of Mac Sarasota, or the unmistakable loyalty of Roy Arcadia. She'd imagine her husband's face of surprise when she knocks on his door - he's living with some sugar girl in the woods of Oregon - and she can kick him straight in the keys where it's gonna hurt. However, she's lost track of him since it took quite a long time for her to realize that her desire for vengeance was not going to lead her to happiness; it could lead to an assault charge, murder if she lost track of herself, and then jail time. Midna Nye is not someone who is going to go spend jail time.

Snake pinches the bridge of his nose. "When you and Sheik interacted on the helicopter that day... she called you Amber." His demeanor changes from rather aloof to pointed, and perhaps the scariest Midna has ever seen her boss in her entire life. "Did you know her? Did she know you?"

There's no point in lying; Midna knows this. She's able to lie to any random damn stranger on the planet if she didn't know them, but the moment that anonymous barrier is dropped, she's unable to save her own skin even if there is a gun pointed to her head. Lying to her boss, via a tape recorded conversation... not a good way to go out.

"Yeah," she admits.

Snake's eyes widen, as if he almost didn't expect this. "How so?"

"We weren't ever close, _close_ , but I knew her," Midna's palms start to sweat, in which she alleviates by wiping on her pant leg. "In college, when I was studying criminal law, and she psychology, we waited tables together. We were both involved in the theater program and that's where the nicknames originated. She's Ocarina, and I'm Amber."

"And did you know about her illegal activities?"

"Not at first," Midna says, and then she wants to shoot herself in the face.

If the FBI director's stare can go more aghast, it does. " _Not at first?_ "

"When I was spying on Link..." Midna cannot get the damn words out of her mouth, as if she's digging herself an early grave. Damn the system, damn the society. "She was his buyer, the rebel buying weapons from him. He ended up cheating her... and then their connection dissolved. She had my phone number from all the way beforehand, back at school."

"And did she call you?"

"Multiple times."

"Multiple times? Midna!"

"Three!"

"Three times too many!"

"They were in Chicago," Midna adds hurriedly, biting her lip. "After her group attacked you guys in the bar. I called her when there was the announcement on the TV about the Syrenet opening. I didn't know where she was located or what she was planning on doing."

"You knew about the whereabouts of a known terrorist and-"

"I'm telling you, I _didn't_ know anything like that!" she hisses through clenched teeth, arms wrapping around the rests in a terrible vice, where her skin morphs into the leather. Snake sits back a bit, eyes a myriad of emotions.

"Why'd you never turn her in?"

"Because you don't know her," Midna says, for her explanation. Snake raises an eyebrow, meaning he does not understand, and she expounds further, "You told Roy to disarm her and disable her so we could take her in, after Corrin. Yet, she vanishes. There's no way she was going to be caught. Me trying to evoke a location out of her wasn't going to do anything either. She vanished _without_ a trace in the middle of a forest where there's nothing around it for two miles at least. Imagine her disappearing in an entire city."

Snake takes a deep breath, scooting back in his chair. Midna mirrors his movements, exhaling, her body melding into the chair. She wants a hole to cover her up from above, to swallow her whole and take her to a dimension that is unknown. It's like what she told Roy, that she expected something like this to happen, and it's just a week later after the inauguration. She imagines the multiple ways that Snake is planning her death, dying by firing squad seems the most appropriate, the most poetic. A hail of bullets and copper to act as her send-off, there's nothing better she can think of.

The FBI director scoots forward, clicking off on the recorder, and it means whatever the two say, she can be as free in her thoughts and aloud as she pleases.

"Let me get this straight. You, somehow, through a stroke of bad luck, meet Corrin and Cloud's given away daughter in college. You guys work at the same restaurant and become waitresses, act in the same school plays. You and her go separate ways, and then reconvene in Boston, where somehow she's the rebel leader against her unknown mother's governmental association, receiving weapons from the arms dealer you were specifically tagged to trail. After the disaster that is Boston, you two go separate ways until she calls you again in Chicago, resuming connections, and she attacks the city. You knew what she _was,_ but not necessarily what she was going to do." A pause. "Did you know about Detroit?"

"No." Midna shakes her head vehemently, her mouth drying up again. Had she known what Sheik Braring is going to do in Detroit, blowing up subway systems and streets, bombing down houses and buildings, and massacring the citizens, she would've put a stop to it.

Snake rubs his chin. "After Chicago, why didn't you say something?"

"I never got the chance," and Midna is right on that case. Here she is, going to war with herself over everything in her head moralistically, and then, the moment that Marth is shot and paralyzed, it all goes down hill. Corrin is so focused on having the Council of Detroit on her side that she doesn't listen to anyone else's suggestions on going somewhere else or moving on. The very next day in Detroit, something spooks the four and they don't say a word... Mac is murdered, Corrin disappears, and then Sheik bombs the city. She had no idea where Sheik had been hiding after the Chicago failure, but it likely was not in the same state of Illinois anymore, contrary to what some may believe.

The FBI director is tapping away at the desk, face pensive in thought. "Then I guess that means we're done here."

Midna takes it as a sign to leave, and so she gets up from her chair, pushing it in. She had been having an actual good day; no nightmares from the slumber before, one of her coworkers buys her breakfast and lunch, she gets a free taxi fare... and then it now results in her being fired. She's going to go to her desk, one hand lacing around the corner of the office, when...

"Did I say you could leave?"

She frowns, stopping. "You said that means we're _done_ here, so I assumed..."

"You assumed you were being fired? Arrested, even?" Snake crosses his arms.

"Uh... yeah."

Snake stands up from his chair, going to the window, staring outside onto Pennsylvania Avenue. One more week and the construction on the brand new White House would be complete. Corrin had done a huge favor, actually, by saving all the paintings and other memorabilia of the old mansion, but most of the furniture, china, and other bits of the history that went along with a near two hundred and twenty year-old facility is gone up in smoke, smoke and ashes.

"As you know, Robin is now the president. And, as you know, this election was going to be my last one as director, because I was going to be retiring."

Midna steps back into the room, not quite understanding his angle. "Yeah, I remember. The big going away party and all that. Before Boston."

"Even if I am leaving the Bureau, it does not mean I am leaving the American people," and Snake's shoulders rise visibly, but not because of tension. It's pride, a proudness that has exulted beyond whatever she has seen before. She's never seen Snake this _happy,_ either. "Robin wants to name me vice president for the term."

"You're kidding."

"I wish I was."

"How much about politics do you know?"

"Enough," Snake opines. "Out of everyone in the administration, polls show I am the most trustworthy. Robin doesn't want another female by her side, because even though she and Corrin got things done... they cat-fought more of the time than getting work done, and she isn't going to allow that. A lot of those seedy politicians on the Hill are just looking to get into her pants, she says. She wants someone familiar, someone she knows won't fail her. She considered Roy for a brief second, but he's too young, and inexperienced. So... she picked me."

Midna actually claps at the information. Even though, apparently, it means she's still going to be fired from the FBI and all, hearing that her mentor is going to become the 2nd-in-command for the United States is some feat that cannot just be congratulated via clapping and the popping of a bottle of champagne. Even at the expense of her being fired, there's enough gratitude in her to relish.

"I- that's awesome, Snake."

"And that means it leaves the position of the FBI director vacant by my leaving; I cannot do both at the same time. I thought about the vetting process, but I always had this idea in the back of my mind on who I wanted, and Robin has since Detroit assured me this too. We want to assign you to FBI director. I want to promote you."

Her world shatters like a snow globe hitting the ground, a rather stunned sound of 'Uhh...' coming from her, and she actually goes to sit back down. Her head is swimming with confusion, lies, deceit, all of these unsure things that she doesn't know how they ended up there. Is she dreaming? She remembers telling Mac, on their lunch date in Chicago, about Snake, and his retirement, and that she is going to be his replacement, but all she's doing is talking her mouth off. That had never been the plan, Snake had never actually mentioned it; she says it because it builds her up in a time of uncertainty.

"But... I... the withholding of information. Of Sheik... I-" Midna starts.

"I believe you, Midna, that you didn't know what was going on," Snake says, straightening out his tie, sitting back down. "That you knew Sheik, but didn't know her plans. A blind person who can hear a fight happening, but still unable to see the fight physically is a blind man who cannot really help break the fight up. That's what I think you are in this case." A pause. "I wouldn't offer this to you if I didn't think you were overtly qualified. You're the only FBI agent to join Syrenet for a mission and stick with it; you didn't have to go to Detroit with all of us since it wasn't originally in the contract."

"I still don't think it should be me..."

"Of course, your very first job as FBI director, Ms. Nye, is to make sure you take down that blonde bitch Sheik Braring as quickly as you can for her acts of domestic terrorism. It's a way to redeem yourself, so to speak."

Her heart has never agreed with something so true. "Sheik being captured is my priority."

"I assure you that the witch-hunt from any opposition will start, but you'll have to remain vigilant. Earn America's trust; as I earned yours. As you earned mine."

Midna's heart rate begins to decelerate. Is she dreaming? She actually pinches herself to test the theory. From a woman who has been married to a psychopathic husband who's only desire is to see her rail-thin, to where she is puking her guts out because she's so disgusted with food, to then being vetted and accepted and _surviving_ the marginal program to become an FBI agent, and here she is, years later... being promoted to FBI director.

"I don't deserve this, Snake..." she says, but her heart wants to accept it anyways. It does not seem like she has a choice.

"I bet many of the people in this government don't deserve the chances they get," he agrees. "But, they make their dues, and they prove us wrong, all of us who are watching," Snake sits forward, a smile placing itself on his face. "Do you accept Robin and I's proposal? It's mostly my idea."

She nods, without a moment's hesitation. Despite having Snake's ear, being his seemingly 2nd-in-command, she does not have the manpower or authority level to get ships in the air and to get services enacted, and get people to do their damn jobs. She could help Snake bring Sheik to justice for her crimes, but she wouldn't be able to ordain it. She now has a duty to this country, a duty she has always had, in retrospect, but now from a true position of power.

The blonde rebel's days are numbered, Midna smirks to herself. She very well might actually hate Samantha Sheik Braring, for what she's done, for who she has and hasn't murdered.

"I accept."

Snake extends his hand, a hand she has not shaken in quite some time, and she goes back to reciprocate it. "Glad to have you, Director."

Midna stands up, practically running out of the room. The switch is to be put in effect today, Snake ready to get up and leave, hang his gun elsewhere and have the ledger wiped clean. Politics has always been a dirty sort of affair, he notes, silently, watching her get up and leave. Being vice president means he's able to provoke more people, get more enemies. Saving Robin's life from those on the inside had just been the tip of the iceberg.

He smiles to himself, watching the flash of scarlet hair disappear behind the wall of idyllic white.

She, despite all of her misfortunes, despite all of her misgivings, is one _hell_ of an FBI agent.

* * *

Bright lights are placated above Roy's head, the Syrenet agent lying back on a surgery bed, doctors in sterile white and holographic blue surrounding him. He's about to be put under, but he's staring to the side out of the window, at Midna, who's up against it, looking in, a crease of worry on her face. It's been a week since Midna announced her promotion, Snake stepped down and is nominated and approved as Vice President... it's been a long time since Corrin blew up the White House and Shulk's body fell off of the Needle.

It's been a long time since Ganondorf, Roy realizes, looking at his hand. This is what the surgery is for, to remove the copper wire from his hands, the metallic objects that slither underneath his skin on his pinkie and ring finger. So far, all he's observed is the burning, which comes and goes on and off, but sometimes in dangerous places / times, like the shower. He could be enjoying a relaxing morning underneath the heated liquid waterfall, and then BAM, he's hit by a resounding wave of agony as his flesh ignites, his hands scorch themselves, and he's brought to his knees. Had he overturned in the shower, and perhaps fallen unconscious due to the pain... he might not be lying down on the operating table any longer alive, but instead as a corpse.

He puts a thumbs-up at Midna, assuring her that he's in good hands, she giving a small smile back, and then under Roy Arcadia goes.

Midna takes a deep breath, hugging her arms tight. She's about to pull out her phone and check the time - she's got a conference call in two hours, but she refuses to leave his side - when the sound of high heels tapping against the floor cause her to turn her head. Silver hair emerges out of the darkness, and though the two ladies look nothing alike, her heart skips a beat, as if Corrin had come back from the dead.

President Robin Wyndel walks down the long, dark hallway, the three stopped in one of D.C's finest hospitals, the lights turned down low so the hallways are illuminated by an eerie cardinal glow. She's standing taller, more regal, sharper than before, the step up in power bringing new life back to an old flame. Midna has been so wrapped up in the job aspect of things that she hasn't had any time to do any reconnaissance of her friends. From what Roy tells her while they're waiting for the doctors, Marth is released from the hospital, taking a quiet and quaint home in the Virginian countryside as his residence, voice perked and alive from the possibility that there's something in the works with his doctors, but he hasn't said what it is yet to anyone. Midna has her suspicions. Pit, in his off-time, is lecturing classes at Harvard about Computer Science and Engineering... and here Midna is, the world unable to slow down for her in any capacity.

"Madam President," she regards.

"Director," Robin says back, standing likewise with the redhead, the two ladies watching the beginning of the surgery take place.

Midna shudders at the thought, seeing one of the surgeons pull out a pair of scissors and some tweezers. "They're finally going to get rid of the wiring underneath Roy's hands. Why did he do that again? Ganondorf?"

"He was going to turn him into another cyborg, another Ganondorf Perish. You told me he could teleport, create multiple illusions of himself," the president says. "I saw it with my own eyes, when he killed the other members of the Council of Thirteen. I thought I had been dreaming."

"Did those wires have any affect on Roy?"

"I don't think so. The doctors didn't say anything like that. I think Ganondorf got destroyed before he could take a step further. All Roy has said that happens is that his skin can burn quite severely in unpredictable places."

Robin has always liked Roy, now that she thinks about it. Her very first time meeting him had been the big pow-wow after Cloud's disappearance - rather, _murder_ \- in the White House concerning details of the Chicago operation. It had been so long ago, everyone looking rather unspoiled and untainted with the grimes and horrors of the West. What Syrenet could really do to someone. She admires his spunk, his forthrightness, and the fact he's able to acknowledge when he's wrong.

It's what she's never liked about Shulk, since the beginning. Despite having the trait of being a wounded animal twenty-four-seven, by constantly looking over his shoulder or throwing dodgy glares at anyone who dare speak to him... there's a bit of cockiness in the man's personality, as if he could never be wrong. That he never had any faults, always mentioning Corrin whenever he could. Robin only had a few one-on-one conversations with the ex-commander, but she's actually quite glad about it.

She grips the cross hanging around her neck, tugging at it. Since leaving for Chicago, she had forgotten to pack one with her, and it scared her. Marth told her once, back in their lunch conversation about giving the men a day off, that he couldn't believe she's religious in American politics, as if they are two entirely different sides of the spectrum and one cannot be the other. There's a certain poetic taste to her life, when Corrin attempts to have her killed, that Robin finds herself pushing towards faith more than anything else. Not power. Not in riches. But, in God.

Robin lies awake, staring up at the ceiling plasters, making pictures out of the etched designs most evenings. The new Secret Service agent team she assembles, the old ones all dead either from kidnapping her in Detroit, being alongside Corrin's side in the bitter end, or being... Mac... it's an entire clean slate. Roy is the only able fighter she can think of to join the ranks, in which he politely declines. She can see the war going on inside the redhead's head, thoughts about abandoning Syrenet altogether, and how right on the nail he would be; he has all the right in the world to do that.

However, as she lies awake, Snake's gunshots go off in her head, and she flinches, burying her head into the pillow and screaming. She hopes her screams can fester into demons, to shadows that lurk in the corner and watch every one of her steps as if it's a leopard stalking an antelope on the African plain. Of course, every time she yells, an agent bursts in, gun drawn, and it makes the entire ordeal worse. They always ask her why, and she has to lie, saying it's only an aversion to guns after being caught up in the rebel fights of Chicago and Detroit. It's a satisfying answer, which manages to assuage the Secret Service agents and the others involved in her cabinet.

It's more than that, though. It's always been more than that.

There's a long passage of time, when the agent, back in Detroit, presses the muted, cold barrel of the gun against her head. How she's squeezing her eyes tight shut, hoping that it is all a dream, how her last thoughts aren't even of asking for forgiveness from the Holy Father above, or anything like that. She's upset that Snake is not here to die alongside her, or that she's even thinking Corrin would be attempting of killing her best friend... and it shames her, that even in her most dire hour, her faith is not the thing to triumph above it all.

She's never leaving anywhere, should she be on camera, without the cross hanging around her neck. It gives her a sanctity, a serenity that she's often been unable to find. It's the second day, actually, of living in the brand new White House, one of the fastest construction projects done in American history. It could've been done faster, but she's not going to push people to the breaking point on building a mansion, no matter how symbolic that mansion might be to its citizens or abroad. Any disgruntled foreign dignitary simply has to turn their plane or motorcade around and call it a day; she doesn't care how long it would take, at least it'd be done right.

It is the same exact floorplan, pictures back up where they are supposed to be... and it almost feels like home, like it is the right place, whilst living in the residency alone. She thinks about having her parents come live with her, but that's rather uncommon, to have your parents live alongside you in the palace of your power. Even dwelling on it now, Robin knows how pretentious it is.

She scoots back on her heels, inhaling. "I don't know why I am even mentioning this, but... only you, Roy, Snake, Pit, and Marth know of Corrin's attempt on my life."

Midna locks eyes with the president. "I hope so, Madam. It isn't something for the rest of the world to know."

"Snake saved me."

"I know, Madam President. That's the main reason you picked him to be vice president, isn't it? Because you trust him with your life more than anyone else. That you'd trust his hands encircling the country should you be incapable of doing so."

Robin furrows her eyebrows together. "I had never quite thought of it that way, but you're right."

"You picked a good choice, Robin," Midna says, wincing inwardly. Are the two on a first name basis yet? She hopes so... that'd be awkward.

"I like to think I did."

She looks inside the operating room, the surgeon closest to the two ladies digging inside one of Roy's fingers with tweezers, blood on the table, before pulling out a slimy, almost unrecognizable wire that is bunched up, bundled up and unable to untied via hands. She flinches, but she does not look away, Robin gives herself credit. After seeing what she's seen, via a war on the home front... nothing is going to phase her all that much like it might've beforehand, back when Link Collins betraying the administration is the worst threat she's seen to her normal and rather mundane political life. To stem the waning bile from appearing in her throat, she chews on the inside of her cheek, that obstructing the motion to want to vomit.

Without Roy, Syrenet would be ruling the country, even if Corrin would've liked to believe she is in charge. Or better yet, as Roy had mentioned it, Ganondorf is in charge, with the country at his back and call. Without Roy, everything falls apart.

"Y'know, Midna, I've always liked him."

"Who?" the new FBI director frowns.

"Roy," Robin regards, with a nod of her head. "He's always been the most level-headed of the Syrenet employees I've met."

"Oh." Midna clearly does not know what to do with that information.

The silverette's hair is pulled back into a ponytail, her left hand surfing through the strands of hair. "I also liked Mac..." She's never been the one to grace conversations as well as she had been smoothing them over, since it is a trait with the Etch administration that she has to do over and over again with those prime ministers or NRA associates.

The redhead looks at the president, not quite understanding the angle. "I'm glad."

"Did you love him?" Robin asks abruptly.

"Love who?"

"Mac Sarasota."

The name, as Robin observes, sends the director reeling back on her own heels, her face impasse with emotion. Midna looks down at her feet, biting on her lip. Robin does not know why she's even asking the question, it isn't that important. Personally, it shouldn't even be _her_ business. They're not all enjoined in a Syrenet mission together anymore, and even then, after all of that, she's working together with Midna at an arms length, and Roy even lesser so. However, it's always been a burning question, where the trio stood, as Robin saw it from a distance, a distance that needed to be touched with via protective gloves or some kind of meshing.

"They never got along," Midna says, sort of obstructing the question, rubbing her right arm innocuously. "I still don't know why Mac hated Roy. Ego problem, perhaps. In turn, Roy didn't like Mac, so it's like I was between two nuclear warheads, one about to go off at any second," she gives a rather airy laugh. "I want to think I loved Mac. Who knows what we were, though. Boyfriend and girlfriend probably... but in love? He was kind, charming, sweet, and could kick ass, everything Roy is. And then he died and I didn't know what to feel," the FBI director looks up at the ceiling. "I still miss him. He's buried and gone and I still miss him."

Robin places a hand on her shoulder. "I miss him too."

"Roy's different," Midna adds on, looking back at the other redhead on the operating table. "He's got a softer side than Mac, and certainly not as aggressive. Like he has to explain himself or apologize for what he does. And while that can be annoying... I like it. It doesn't hurt that I've known him since high school, even though we never interacted with one another." At Robin's raising of an eyebrow, she continues. "We went to school together and Roy asked me to prom once, but I rejected him. The guy I did go with, well, I ended up marrying him-"

"Mr. Veracruz, right?" Robin interrupts, actually forgetting her manners for once.

"Yeah. He..." Midna shifts uncomfortably. "He wasn't the kind for me," then looking back at Roy, "I once told Roy on the plane to Chicago what life would've been like had I accepted his prom proposal. Where we'd be, if I didn't marry the asshole I ran away with."

"We all make mistakes, Midna," the silverette admonishes.

"My mistakes have been worse than most."

"Do you love him? Roy?" the president asks.

The redhead nods, not feeling compelled to say anything. Robin understands where this is coming from, she's in a similar pickle. Whenever she sees Snake, for all he has done for her just in the last month... she cannot help but feel something towards him. Their history goes back far, and she's always been one to stare at his body and be a giddy little school girl again. But, there's bigger things on the horizon than the feelings for a man who is beyond her league, out of it entirely, astronomically.

"I do..." Midna whispers. "And that part of me feels terrible."

"Why?"

"Because of Mac. That if I have feelings for Roy, then my relationship with Mac is all for nothing and it doesn't amount to anything. That I'm dishonoring him."

Robin takes in a deep breath, a chill passing over her exposed shoulders. It looks like the surgeons were going to go remove the wires out of Roy's left hand, it shouldn't be much longer until his hands are bandaged up, he's given some painkillers and morphine, and released back into the world. Maybe into Midna's arms. "Whatever you two end up doing, if anything... please take care of him. Take care of Roy."

"Why, Robin?" Midna asks, this time, being the one to give the questions.

The president has the thousand yard stare, looking past the surgeons, past the clouds and the buildings and downtown D.C, past the stars. "He's the warrior type. They fall down and break and they build themselves back together the best they can. Eventually, they just might break too many times. I want you to be there when it happens, so that when Roy breaks again, he doesn't stay that way."

With that, the president turns on her heels, walking away, her shoes making ghastly echoes in the abandoned hallway. She huddles into her coat for warmth, Midna watching her go, sentences she wishes she could say evaporating on her tongue. Her mouth is parted open, looking back at Roy, and her heart warms a little.

Having liked Mac, she can survive.

Loving Roy, she can live with it.

She did not expect Robin to approach her, not having even known that the president knew about the surgery. Midna herself almost forgets it that morning when her alarm went off, before racing down to the hospital as soon as the dredges of the sleep earlier waned off. She actually never had a one-on-one conversation with Robin since joining the Syrenet team, and being the FBI director, it probably meant she'd be having more of these sort of talks.

If this is going to be a daily occurrence, Midna can deal with that.

She looks Roy, holding a hand up to her chest, smiling weakly, smiling lightly.

Roy Arcadia, she can handle.

Roy Arcadia, she can live with.

* * *

Pit's invitation to stop by Syrenet headquarters, a place Roy hadn't seen in who knows how long is something slightly auspicious to him. He is standing in the elevator, still freezing his ever living soul out, arms hugged tight to his sides: it seems they haven't fixed the AC yet with all they can do. With every squad brought back to D.C after Corrin's death, the place is filled to the teeth with people on every floor, doing lord knows what. The woman, Peach, is still at the front desk with her bright pink outfits and her blonde hair swooped to an 'M' on her forehead, and it's the first warm piece of familiarity in his life.

He actually does not have a cot or a room in the headquarters, like Marth, Ike, Shulk, and Pit who practically lived there during their off-seasons of a few days or weeks. Roy never is assigned a place, as his release from the hospital due to the injuries sustained by Link had him out of headquarters the week he had been back from Boston, and two days later, the group is in Chicago, and out to Detroit. His own home is twenty minutes out of the capital, and it's where he stayed for the training at the FBI as well... he'll probably live in the house till the end of time.

The elevator stops on the bottom floor, as per Pit's request, and Roy steps back into the foyer. Just a little over two months ago, and he's the newest Syrenet recruit - still technically _is,_ as Mac and Midna didn't count - with a smiling Shulk - not often did that man ever smile, perhaps it's the last time that happens - and a world that Roy has no idea he's walking into. He should've just ignored Corrin's letter, but he accepts because he's in over his head and wants to please anyone he can.

He steps into the bottom floor, heart immediately filling with an emotion of remembrance, sorrow, and even pain. There's only one made cot, the other three untouched. Roy's heart falls. Two of those people who used to sleep there will never be able to come back, not from the dead, not even as ghosts. The third is likely going to stay away forever, it would make sense; Syrenet's building is not designed for the handicapped, Marth needing a wheelchair to get around. Roy is still unable to cope with the fact that Ike and Shulk are gone... and somehow Pit is the last one standing.

A survivor he is.

Roy spots Pit at his computer work bench, bent over his computer, scrutinizing some part. His wings are gone, and as certain Roy is that the technician will never wear the costume ever again to give him wings, it is as if he has grounded himself; Pit Icarus flew too close to the sun, got burned, but survived and is now going to be walking on Earth the entire time. Not that the costume ever made the other man childish per say, him not wearing them anymore has elevated him more than ever before, a maturity that didn't exist.

"You said you wanted to see me?" Roy calls out, still freezing to the core, though he is trying not to think about it too hard.

Pit looks up from his computer, and his face changes into one of pure elation and joy, a shiver running through the redhead's body. The technician walks over, throwing his arms around Roy in a hug. "Hey! You made it! Thanks for coming."

"I wouldn't miss it," Roy says, but he's lying through his teeth. He almost thought about refusing the invite, as pleasant as it is to receive it. He's wanted to throw the towel in and quit, give an official 'I'm out' statement to those at the head of Syrenet, and never look back. These last two months have soured things beyond sour, the worst lemon possible, and he's not sure this path is his future any more. Not after what he's seen, not after what he's had to do, who to destroy, to know the greed, corruption, lies, treachery, and plain disrespect... he's unable to stand forthright above it all anymore. "How's the lecturing going?"

He's referencing the teaching at MIT, and now starting to stretch out towards Harvard a bit, which is definitely a huge step up. The brown haired man blushes, actually, rubbing his arm. "It's going great! It's weird getting called Professor, or Mr. Icarus, but I imagine I am gonna be able to get used to it," and then an added laugh, "I don't even have a teacher's license or a degree in being able to profess college on any subject matter... yet here I am..." he presses a hand to his forehead. "Just think of the strings Robin pulled to get me here."

"You deserve it."

"I don't know if I'd go that far," Pit admonishes himself, placing a hand against his stomach, the other outstretched. His facial expressions say something totally different, as he's smiling like the world's largest idiot. "But, thank you."

"What are you working on?" Roy asks, pointing back to the computer.

"Oh, that's nothing," Pit turns around to follow the gesture. "Just messing around with settings, actually. Maybe program a new AI Unit. I'm just about to head over to the White House; I've got an appointment with Robin at four."

"What about?"

"I don't know. Hopefully something good. The last time one of us from Syrenet got called into the Oval Office, apparently it was Shulk..." an awkward pause ensues, Pit biting down on his bottom lip, Roy shuffling his feet. "We know how that went... but I imagine it'll be fine."

"And what'd you need me for?"

Pit's face elates a bit, and his gesturing goes back over to the center console in the middle of the room; this is where Shulk outlined the Boston project on tailing Link, however now covered in papers and folders from the technician's musings. Roy forgets that Pit is now the commander of Beta Squad, having taken Marth's position, something put in writing via Corrin... Pit is Roy's boss and yet the redhead has always viewed _Pit,_ not himself, to be the lowest man on the totem pole.

However, the technician is not pointing at the console for the purpose of the mess. In the center is a disk, that looks like it had been reconstructed, new bits put back together... Roy's heart skips a beat. Whose AI Unit is that? It's an AI Unit's disc. Is it... no... it couldn't be?

"That," Pit says. "That's what I wanted you for. A surprise."

Roy's following swallow is like a rock going down his esophagus, splashing in his stomach with a ricocheting crash. "Is... is that Ness?"

The technician's face falls somewhat, disappointed. "No... I'm sorry, Roy. Shulk fired his gun at close range through the disc itself... whatever piece of information contained on it caused the file to corrupt, and I can't put the pieces back together. However, since you saved the pieces to Lucas's... I thought I could do something with it," he sighs, his shoulders rising. "I didn't tell anyone else about this. You're the first person to see it. Lucas should be back to normal."

"Can- can I speak to him?"

"It's why I invited you over. To be the first face besides mine he sees."

"Thank you, Pit."

"It's nothing."

"I mean it," Roy insists, squeezing Pit tight in a hug. It's a brotherly one, despite no relations, and it is perhaps the most empathetic embrace he has ever given anyone aside his parents. The technician pats the redhead on the back when the two depart, nodding his head.

"I'm gonna give you the room. I gotta head to the White House, anyways," Pit smiles, squeezing Roy's shoulder.

He walks past the redhead, Roy watching him go through the lobby and back into the elevator, waving when the doors close. He's left down in the basement now, papers scattered everywhere, a stocked fridge, beds still dirty... and a rebuilt AI Unit now sitting on the main console. The very last word Roy ever said to Lucas had been thank you... and when he and Shulk split apart, that had been the last time he saw the blonde hologram.

Roy walks over to the disc, taking a deep breath. He's tried thinking less and less of the Needle. Less and less of the sewers, and Shulk and Ganondorf, and that entire damn trip. With the copper wires out of his fingers, no longer burning him, the scars will remain, but it is one more tie, one more tether that will not hold him back any longer. He can forget it however he chooses, however he pleases. He wants to forget, to be perfectly honest. Have it over and done with, for all that has happened.

Life would've been much more simple had he been an FBI agent. The only reason Snake is roped into the Chicago and Detroit missions is due to him saving _his_ ass on the Boston one, and Corrin needing the extra firepower. Midna tags along as she's second-in-command, and that meant without Snake or Midna, he's dead, Robin's dead... in fact, every guy could be dead besides Shulk since the rebel surprise attack in Chicago. Had Snake and Midna not been with the Syrenet squads, Roy would still be in Ganondorf's clutches, brainwashed, a killing machine for a cyborg, and Corrin could still be alive, ruling the country.

Perhaps he's not so upset to be in Syrenet at that time.

Roy presses the center button on the AI disc, the rims outlining themselves in a light blue halo. A picture in the middle flickers into being, and for the first time in a month and a half, a very familiar blonde wave of hair and a bright smile accompanied by even brighter diamond eyes comes into frame.

Lucas Dio... alive and holographically well.

He's sitting on the disc, legs crossed over one another, still blissful, still caught up in the world and its surroundings. Still cheerful, maybe naïve, and one hundred percent happy. Roy hasn't spoken a single word to him yet and there's already tears prickling in the corner of his eyes.

"Lucas..." he whispers, crouching down to the disc.

The AI Unit eyes him, expression doing an entire one-eighty, having seemingly been meditating moments earlier. He stands up, face jubilant, arms thrown out into the air as if he is giving him a virtual hug. "Roy!"

"How've ya been buddy?"

"Great! You?"

"Could be better. I'm glad to see you're up and running. I don't know how Pit did it... but he did it."

Lucas smiles, hugging himself. It's probably a very scary feeling, virtually dying. Roy's pretty sure none of the AI Units experience bodily physicalities. Yes, they are emotive, yes they can think... but do they have a word to describe pain? An equivalent to being shot? What did Ness think in his final moments? Had he been aware of any sort of final moment, actually? Roy misses Ness a lot, with the snarky voice and the attitude to back it up. He made Roy see the big picture, however, as the redhead zooms in on the narrow and unnecessary.

There's a pause in Lucas's demeanor, the happiness sort of drying up like water on a sandy shore. What does the drying of the water? The absorption into the sand... or the sun? "He shouldn't of had to do it."

Roy's eyes emote sympathy back at the AI Unit. "What do you remember?"

"I remember everything, Roy. I'm a piece of programming," the blonde responds, rather tart, actually, perhaps the most sharp he's ever been. His face lapses into a break of shame, due to his vitriol, but it washes back with a more calming expression. "I remember arguing with Shulk, and then, when I turned myself off, he closed his fist on me. Everything went dark... and that was it. My entire surrounding broke. And it stayed that way until just a few days ago when Pit managed to fix me."

"I'm sorry..." the redhead apologizes. "I didn't know Shulk was going to do that."

"I expected something irrational from him," Lucas adds, his face beyond his technical age. "But not that," there's a pause, eyes searching Roy's face for a broken stasis of emotion, a censure, a caesura or betrayal. "Where's Shulk? Pit wouldn't tell me no matter how times I asked. He said it should come from you."

Roy's heart sinks into his stomach, and his blood goes cold. He'd been preparing, if he ever had to talk to Lucas somehow in some way, perhaps in a dream, about Shulk that he wouldn't clam up. He wouldn't get a nervous sweat pouring down his face, or a fear that this smart piece of technology will harbor an unbelievable hate for him. All of this hits the redhead in the face when Lucas asks the question, despite anticipating it. Nothing can prepare someone for _the_ moment in time, not anymore. Perhaps not ever.

"He died in Detroit." Roy has to look away after he says this, his body overcome with guilt. He lies awake thinking about this, thinking about his anger. He had never been more upset in his entire life than at Corrin for that moment in time, screaming at her that she stole his best friend away from him, stole someone he actually cared about and all she used him for is to be her pawn... not even giving him gratification in the end.

"How?" the Syrenet agent does not respond to this question, changing angles to look away. Lucas tilts his head, eyebrows coming together. "How, Roy? I'd like to know."

"He was shot through the heart."

"By who? A rebel?"

Roy closes his eyes. He's admitted it to Snake, to Midna, to Pit, to Robin, to Corrin... even Sheik knows and she's the last person he would've ever thought to tell. It doesn't occur to him until this very moment that it is Lucas asking him, perhaps the most innocent person on the planet. This could go the worst way possible, and he'd deserve it. There are some truths better left unsaid, and perhaps this one might be it. Roy rubs his arms, and this time it is not due to the cold; it is his fear, the one that builds in his stomach, roaring like a lion to be noticed, until his insides are twisting together as if they were stabbed by a hot knife that then went from navel to collarbone.

"Me... Lucas."

"You shot Shulk in the heart?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You probably already know why, don't you?" Roy asks.

Lucas nods. "I probably do. I'd like to hear it for myself, though. Just to have it said aloud. Knowing why..." he shakes his head, shuddering. "It helps somehow."

Roy places a hand over his stomach, it starting to hurt, the action comforting him slightly. He's done it since he turned eight, with flus and food poisonings. "Shulk had ended up killing a lot of people. Mac, Cloud... _Ness_... it was because of him. And, in the end, he was willing to help Corrin, completely faultless, to rule to the world. I couldn't sway him and we ended up fighting. He... he also killed Ike while we were there. Ike and I fought him on top of the Needle and Shulk got the better hand," there's a slight cry. "I killed my best friend, Lucas."

"I'm sorry you had to do that..." and this is the most sincere Lucas has ever been, despite being the most wholesome creature on the entire planet. Pit did an excellent job programming him.

"Are you mad at me?" Roy asks. Roy himself slightly hates what he's done, even with killing Corrin. Mulling over the details in his head, it makes the story very incongruous and hard to follow, hard to pick sides for. If it came down, simply, to Fiora and her unborn child, over the president's beginning plan, Roy has any easy decision to make. Once it evolved into this huge whole thing, on rebels fighting, and a broken piece of the Union... adding a commander into the mix who has used blind loyalty as his shield... Roy does not see the world in black and white anymore. It isn't a shade of gray, either. His picture is entirely on fire, on fire and there's no extinguisher in sight to quench or quell the flame.

Lucas straightens out his arm, clenching his hand into a fist. His eyes gloss over some, as if he's transfixed on a sight in the unforeseen distance. "I don't know. Part of me wants to be upset... but the other half..." he breaks off, tears in his eyes, the AI Unit looking up at the ceiling. "Part of me feels like he deserves it, for what he's done. I want to scream and break something and... I can't. I can't bring myself to act like that anymore. I'm exhausted."

"I'm exhausted, too. If you want to be mad at me, though, you can. I won't hold it against you," the redhead opines.

"Shulk crushing my disc, it taught me something," Lucas says, sitting down on the platform. He's still only a foot tall, still dressed in the blue and red horizontal striped shirt, jean shorts, slicked lemonade hair... it's the same Lucas Dio, AI Unit extraordinaire, and now he's morphed into something different entirely, an almost beautiful metamorphosis.

"Taught you what?" Roy asks, not quite following the gist of what's being said.

Lucas lets out a scoff. "I've always experienced emotions outside of my programming... since day one. Jealousy. Rage. Lust. I wanted to be more than what I was, what I _am,_ " the blonde pulls down the bottom of his eyelids, sighing. "I was designed to be a piece of technology called an AI Unit, to assist humans in Syrenet with their jobs and tasks in performing their duties. To mimic mankind... I am _programmed_ in the likeliness of an eleven year-old named Lucas Dio from New Jersey who died from cancer... and yet I am not human. I'm programmed to run, act, sing, think, talk... yet I am not alive. That I'm not a human being. I had always wanted to be a living thing, and I just thought it was bad programming to think these things..." he closes his eyes momentarily. "Shulk crushing my disc up after interrogating him taught me not to overstep my boundaries, and I did just that by provoking him."

"What boundaries, Lucas?" the Syrenet agent places a hand underneath his jaw.

"To not ascertain for something I can't reach," Lucas clarifies, giving a slight upturn of his mouth. "The only reason why I even spoke to Shulk in the first place is because that Ganondorf dude told me to question him. He promised to make me human and I was stupid enough to listen."

"You aren't stupid, Lucas. You're probably the smartest eleven year-old alive."

There's another pause between them, Lucas kicking the 'dirt' of his disc. The holographic world inside is something Roy is desperate to see, having heard Shulk give a description of it, but that had been due to a loophole and Lucas being able to mind-meld a connection. "How did Shulk die, Lucas? On his feet fighting, or on his knees begging?"

"He died standing on his feet. Like the fighter he is," Roy has tears prickling at the corner of his eyes again, and he wipes them away. "He died protecting Corrin with his very last breath."

"I expected nothing less of him," Lucas gives an airy laugh, his smile more in disbelief than happiness.

"Are you going to miss him?" Roy asks.

"Of course I am," there's no hesitation, not a pause or a preamble or anything of the sort. "Shulk was the closest thing I think you guys can call to being a father. He made mistakes, he wasn't perfect... but he was _mine_ , y'know?"

"I understand completely," the redhead scratches the back of his neck. "What are you going to do now? You going to be some AI Unit for another commander?"

Lucas rocks back and forth on his heels. "I don't know. I could become Pit, Snake, or Robin's accompanying AI Unit if I wanted to, as Pit told me. I've thought about being Snake's, but he isn't going to be in the field anymore. I thought about Pit too, but he's been designing his own personal one for a few months now," and then, a happier disposition. "Honestly... Midna. I thought about being her AI Unit. She'd be allowed to have one, and I was told she's now the director of the FBI. She could use the company." He pauses, tilting his head to the side some. "What about you? You never... you never got someone else after Ness."

Roy's tongue feels diluted, as if there's a cloud or clot of something resting on it, like he can't speak. He still doesn't know what he's going to do, let alone what he wants to do. Having Ness for such a short time bothers him, as Shulk, Marth, and Ike had their own respective ones for years and years and yet he has Ness for a bit of a week, even less than that, and the guy is gone because he goes digging... breaking programming, and Corrin's paranoia has no alternatives. He's not even sure if he wants one... let alone if Syrenet is the place for him.

It would take a lot to throw in the towel though, to say he's finished, done, out of there. He's puffed his pipe, raised the white flag of surrender, and honestly... he's given up.

"I don't know Lucas," he rubs his arms again, this time from the cold. "I've been thinking about leaving Syrenet."

"Leaving?" Lucas's eyes are as wide as saucers. "Leaving? But why?"

"I just don't think it's the right place for me. Robin's talked to me about being all these sorts of positions in the government... like taking Shulk or Snake's places, but I just know I am not up for them. That it isn't in me to lead like them. I- I kinda want to walk away from it all?"

The AI Unit frowns, biting on his lower lip. Roy realizes what he just said, never having actually spoken that out loud anyone, and then he just did. He'd be needed, he knows that... but he can't. He physically _can't_.

"Well, Roy, no one is going to force you to do anything. I- I just hope you make the right decision when the time comes."

"I do too, Lucas. I do too."

The blonde lowers his head towards the floor for a second. "And, for the record, Roy, I don't hate you. For Shulk. I won't ever hate you for it. I just... I _expected_ it. Pit filled me in the best he could, without mentioning his death, and I... I think you did the right thing."

"Thank you, Lucas. Thank you." Roy sighs loudly, crossing his arms behind his back.

The AI Unit winks at the redhead, his hologram starting to disappear. Lucas vanishes, back into his digital world, and Roy collapses to the floor. It's cold, like the surrounding air, a chill that snaps bones into two, but he doesn't care. He doesn't know what to do anymore, after what he's admitted.

Roy closes his eyes, tears starting to fall, though no sound comes from him.

Two months since Corrin's fall, and Roy Arcadia is just as lost as he had been day one as he is on day ninety.

* * *

Pit has never actually been inside the Oval Office. He's been in the White House plenty of times, but not the Oval Office. First off, he's never been _that_ important to have Corrin talk to him about anything. He's no leader of all of Syrenet, just the technician guy in the back spending sixty hours in three days wiring suits and AI Units and literally having _zero_ life.

So, when Robin asks him via several phone calls, two of which he misses because he's bent over Lucas's disc, to come to the White House and speak with her, he's immediately reminded of Shulk and all of his visits to see Corrin. As far as he's aware, they interacted because they were doing the beast with two backs, and he's not looking to doing that with the new president anytime soon, please and thank you.

When the Secret Service agent bids him good afternoon, letting him inside the room, Pit steps in and stops two short feet after entering. He's in a room that has filled great men and now great women at the helm of an entire nation, population consistently growing, and how amazing it finally is that he's been asked in. The carpet is a lush and riveting navy blue, the ever present bald eagle pictured in the center. He's been gawking for a good minute, the door closing causing the person in the chair at the desk in the center to look up from her paperwork.

Robin's hair is pulled back into a frizzy bun, and she's wearing reading glasses, which she rests on the table, a smile breaking out onto her face. "It's quite the sight, isn't it?" she says, grinning.

That breaks the technician out of his stupor, and he shakes his head. "Good afternoon, Madam President! I- uh... yeah, this is overwhelming."

"Please, take a seat," she invites comfortingly, gesturing to one of the two chairs facing her.

Pit makes his way to it, pulling it out some from the desk, sitting down. He looks at the president, having actually not seen her for a few days, and it's always a radical difference in a matter of days from when he sees someone the last time to now. She's already seeming to age, a few wrinkles burying around the corner of the eyes, her silver hair turning a bit darker, as if the presidency is pouring elderliness into her soul. Robin is already experienced in politics of course, from being a senator, to vice president, but she's graduated. She's moved on, and that is starting to show.

It isn't to say he doesn't miss Corrin. Sure, she never had a kind word to say to him one way or the other, but he digresses.

"It looks just like the old one," he says bluntly, without any exposition to it. She raises an eyebrow at him. "The White House, I mean. Same floorplan, same colored walls, same... mansion."

Robin taps her fingers on the desk, a one-two, one-two sort of rhythm. "Corrin left most of the furniture that she wanted to keep underground, and all of the paintings. What had a bit of dust on them was air vacuumed. Pictures are online everywhere, of course, and memory... so it wasn't that hard..." there's a softness behind her eyes. "I just wish she didn't _do_ it."

"Me too," he looks away, down at the carpet. He's sitting in an entirely brand new White House, in a matter of a few months, and it is as if he's taking a walk through history, a history that is identical to the last, except the people in it are no longer gone.

"However, say what you want about her and Syrenet," Robin adds, keeping a rather happy expression, "Corrin was still a good president. She got many laws passed, kept the economy afloat, unemployment was down to 1.6%... she just wanted more than any of us could ever handle," her hands go to her throat, and Pit knows why. She touches the cross in moments of self-comfort, as if mentioning Corrin's name is bringing life back to the dead in a way that she fears.

"You helped as well, Madam President."

"I did next to nothing," she gives off a shy smile.

Pit follows her right hand, as her left hand had been the one that had been tapping on the desk, then going to her throat. Her right hand is around something cylindrical, silver in color, a small light attached to the top. His heart wells in his throat. That's the very last Robin's Automatic Army drone that he and her built together. That _stupid_ , little project they came up together with one day in Syrenet headquarters where Robin made a fieldtrip. How he thinks he's going to create the new era of Syrenetic technology, just for it to blow up in his face.

The sounds of Chicago and Detroit come back to him, a loud boom followed by screaming: Marth's screams, the police's screams, the giving way of the subway system as mortars collapse the ground above. It's the last time he sees Ike alive, when the cobalt of the commander's hair vanishes behind a stone wall of solid rock, to then where he's now holding the commander's hand, scarlet lacing his fingers, and he's dead... while Pit's alive. It should've been reversed.

"You kept one..." he whispers.

"I found it in a box in the basement," Robin says, following his own gaze. "I thought I would show you it."

"I threw the rest of mine away," his voice is hollow, scorched with a bitter fire that taints the sides of his throat in a coat of acid. "You should burn it immediately if you know what's good for you."

The president sits up at this, her eyes changing emotions at a rapid fire speed. She's always known Pit to be prideful of his work, proud, as he should be. But... this... this isn't him, the same cheerful technician and engineer that she's always known since being in office. "Pit? I- I don't understand... I-"

"They never worked," Pit makes eye contact with Robin, her heart skipping a beat, his own thudding in his chest like a snare drum. "All they did in Chicago was mix birds and humans together... and look how they worked out. Marth won't ever walk again because of our invention..." his chest rises and falls with every succeeding breath, his breathing become accelerated and airy. "In Detroit, when Ike and I got separated, my device couldn't find its way out of a single hallway. All it did was hit a wall and break into a thousand pieces. They're garbage! They always have been!" he stands up at this, arms down by his sides, hands curled into fists. "Get rid of them, Madam President! I don't want to see those pieces of junk ever again!"

He turns away, storming over to the other side of the Oval Office, to the couches splayed in the middle. Pit stands, arms crossed against his chest, staring at the portrait of George Washington on the wall. Part of him wants to walk straight out of the room and never come back, never speak to the silverette ever again. That's all they were then, and perhaps still _are_ , foolish children.

Robin gets up as well, coming around her desk, but only stopping halfway. Putting her hand on his shoulder might be too much. That could've been how Corrin and Shulk started, a moment where the ex-commander lowers his guard, Corrin is legitimately empathetic for once, and then she creates a knot that does far worse than good.

"Pit, I... I'm sorry..."

He turns his head to the left some, locking his jaw. "Do you remember what I told you guys in the hospital? About holding bits and pieces of Marth's spine?" A choked gasp escapes from his throat. "Those drones and my mediocrity brought that on him. On _us._ Had that not happened, Corrin wouldn't have thought we needed Detroit's help. Ganondorf wouldn't have then murdered the council members, allowing Operation Glass Ceiling to occur... and then none of them would be dead!" His voice breaks. "I caused _all_ of it."

"You did no such thing! Don't you dare say that about yourself, Pit Icarus!" Robin yells, and for the first time it might be her raising her voice out of pure anger, an anger for the self-loathing and the self-badgering.

"What were we even thinking?" Pit throws his hands up in the air, scoffing. "That we could create successful robots? We were insane..."

"We weren't insane, Pit. Just visionaries..." the silverette adds, softer.

He puts his hands into his pockets, wiping at his nose, and then at his eyes. "I have to go, Madam President. I can't stay. Thanks for having me over, but I'm sorry. I just... I _can't_..."

Pit heads to leave, hands eclipsing the doorknob. He shouldn't have even come in the first place, if all Robin is going to bring up are the drones, the drones that did absolutely nothing meaningful, and instead filled his head with dreams. Foolish dreams, but dreams nonetheless. The president steps forward, hands outstretched, phrases dying on her tongue.

"Pit, that wasn't the reason I called you here," she says.

He pauses, stopping, one foot in the room, the other out the door and back down the main hallway. A Secret Service agent, different from the one who had been by his side the entire time, looks up, one hand shuffled inside his jacket, perhaps for his weapon. Pit lowers his head, nodding at the agent, who nods back, before shutting the door. He turns around, back up against it, tears down his cheeks, nose a bright cherry red. He wants to tell her off, to scream at her and say how dare she... but he respect her too much, he respects the office of the president too much.

"What did you need, Robin?"

"Can you sit back down? On the couch?"

"I'd rather stand..."

"Please?"

He relents, taking the middle of the righter most couch, Robin sitting on the other side. She folds her hands into her lap like a crease, taking a deep breath. There are tears in her eyes as well, his starting to recede as Pit wipes away at his face. It's probably embarrassing, crying in front of the president. If it had been Corrin, she might've mocked him relentlessly... but she's - Robin's - not about that lifestyle, about mocking others to get work done.

"I had already asked Roy, and he refused... which I expected," she starts, putting one hand on her pant crease and rolling it away. "Pit... I'd like to offer you the role of being commander for Alpha Squad."

Pit had raised one hand to his face, to brush hair away from his eyes, said hand freezing in place, his eyes darting towards Robin. He stutters out a nervous laugh, tilting his head. Robin's face is that of impasse, she isn't joking nor is she making this up. "I- uh... what?"

"I'd like to promote you to being the commander for Alpha Squad. You'd get your own personal AI Unit, a Syrenetic suit. You'd be taking Shulk's place," a pause, letting the words sink in. "When Corrin made you commander for Beta Squad, in the hospital, due to Marth's injury, that was a permeance, she put it into writing and your officially in that spot. However, I have a vacant one I need filled, and Roy refused."

"But I can't take it. What about Marth? He's paralyzed! He can't go back into the field."

"I've been speaking with him about this for a few weeks, and he's decided to come back to work," Robin says. "He won't ever have to leave his house, though, to do his job unless he wants to," a croak builds in her throat, a bubble of protest that stops the syllables from flowing. "I wouldn't dare try and send Mr. Lowell back into the field. It'd be cruel of me to. However, that means he'd be commander for Beta Squad; you would need to be somewhere else."

Pit rubs his eyes with his hands, squeezing them shut, letting out a light sigh. "But what about Ike? He's gone too. Charlie Squad needs one and-"

"That's being looked into, Pit. I've had several hires that I think could work," she scoots forward some off of the couch. "Please, consider it. I need you to be there, in some capacity. You're worth more than just designing the devices if you never got to use them. With Roy out, wanting to stay on the sidelines, Marth forever pushed away... and Shulk and Ike gone, that leaves you as the last one standing."

"I'd be the head of Syrenet..." Pit whispers aloud, as if having to hear it somehow derives the fact that perhaps it might not be true. That it might be too _good_ to be true. "I can't handle it though. I'm not deserving. There must be thousands more qualified than I am."

"I bet there are people who could do the job better, you're right," the silverette agrees. "However, I don't trust any of them the way I trust you."

"Why me though? Why not anyone else?"

"Snake is my vice president. He'd prefer to be the least close to the action as he possible; he doesn't want his sleeves dirty. Midna is now FBI director and she can't fill both positions." She sits back some, setting her shoulders. "I also don't know the other Syrenet commanders from any of the other twenty-three squadrons as well as I know you, Marth, and Roy. I wouldn't be asking you to do this if I don't think you could handle it."

Pit runs a hand through his hair, unable to believe what he is hearing. It is as if he got the best yet worst piece of news all over in his head. The best thing he could think about, with what has been happening, is that the world can't get any worse. Detroit has collapsed by the hinges, and it is up to Robin to try and make amends and fix the broken pieces, the burnt bridges, and restore faith in the outside community. As Sheik disappears, the rebel cause has broken apart in the center, insurgents turning themselves in by the thousands and giving up others in the command as well, for amnesty. Violence, these domestic terrorists have committed... it's coming to a close.

All that needs to be done is try and alleviate Corrin's stain from the country the best they can, leave the silverette queen's name in the spotlight for all of her good deeds and try to erase the bad.

"Do we even have a game plan for Syrenet? To try and establish jurisdiction in anything?"

Robin places one hand on a pillow accompanying her side of her couch, squeezing it. "I need to do a whole top-to-bottom revitalization. Corrin, in all of her bad, in earnest, wanted these technological centers placed in the country for the betterment of the American people, but she also wanted a militant task force not necessarily bound by the laws of the American military," she chews on the inside of her cheek. "Unfortunately, as it turned out, the American people didn't want what she was selling and so in the end she was going to force it on people. To try and mask her brutality as justice," she shakes her head, a few strands of moonlit hair falling out of the bun. "It just means we have to remarket ourselves, create a whole new brand."

Pit looks outside. The sun is shining, and it's starting to warm up from the chillier weather.

"I... I don't know, Madam President."

Robin furrows her eyebrows together. "Can I ask you something, Pit?"

"Of course, ma'am."

"Why, when Corrin asked you to be Beta Commander for Marth back in Chicago, you immediately said yes... yet now you give me a bit of pushback?"

Truth be told, he has no idea why he's giving such resistance. It isn't the best thing in the world for the country, when all Robin is trying to do is mend the broken pieces the best she can, to weld and meld the metal infrastructure that has been destroyed via all the deceit. The stench from Corrin's deeds are an unbelievable smell that cannot be rooted out with a simple spray down.

"I think I was just caught up in a state of emotion then..." he rationalizes. "Marth's lying injured, we had just been attacked, and I was overwhelmed. I didn't know what to do or what not to do, and I just said I'd agree..." he scratches the back of his head. "I don't think I knew what I was signing up for."

"Would you still have accepted it had you known what was going to happen later?"

"Yes ma'am," Pit acknowledges. "Someone hurt someone else I cared about and I wanted to pay them back double. I'd do in a heartbeat."

"Sheik Braring is still out there, somewhere. Midna, Snake, and I are sparing all expenses to find her. We could use you then. You haven't gotten to pay her back." It's the most vengeful Robin Wyndel, in all her sweetness, as ever sounded. Corrin's done things, but the woman is now lying six feet deep. Her daughter is still alive, falsely saying she's going to give in, but she reneges on that brokered piece of offering, she reneges on the olive branch petition and she runs away. She's not going to be able to get by now, not with the world watching her every move, not with the world coming after her.

Pit straightens himself on the couch, back flat against the cushioning. "Then I guess that makes it simple then."

Robin raises an eyebrow. "Yes, Mr. Icarus?"

"I accept, then. I will be your commander for Alpha Squad."

* * *

It's getting late by the time Snake pulls his Cadillac up to the parking lot, the sun starting to sink beneath the sky. The horizon is a beautiful mess of alternating cotton candy pink, ocean blue, and Snake wants to stay on the hood of his vehicle and look at it, but there's something else nabbing his attention. He's been here once, but that's it, and he didn't expect to be back so soon... three years, after all.

His hands encircle around the knob to pull open the gate to the cemetery, one hand inside his pocket, and the other clutching an object to his chest. Snake locks his car, the Cadillac's alarms chirping, the halcyon lights appearing, the glow fading into the sky. It's been quite a long day, and now he's going to make the day _longer,_ and he'll sit inside his house, thinking about the country, and now what he's doing this moment in time.

Unfortunately, as disrespectful of the dead it definitely is, he forgets where the graves are. He forgot where hers had been a few times since he mentioned visiting it - they do all look the same, pretty much - but he's trying to follow Robin's directions the best he can. One used to be underneath a large oak tree, but a second is added and they're still under the tree.

Snake nods towards the general direction, when his eyes fall upon the large, glittering emerald oak tree.

He walks a good few more feet, stopping at the graves of Shulk and Fiora Roberts.

Clutching to his chest, is Robin's journal. The day after Corrin's life is ended, with Roy shutting himself off from the world, he's by Robin's side all day, not even letting a Secret Service agent see her. He finds her writing something down in some sort of book, pencil and pen, erasing sentences and muttering to herself. He's standing over her, occasionally glancing at the book, but he doesn't ask what she's doing. She might be writing to a loved one after all, and he's not going to budge or interrupt.

However, when tears start to fall off of her face and onto the table, he cannot wait any longer.

 _"Robin... what are you doing?"_

 _"I'm writing a memoir."_

 _"Memoir? For who?"_

 _"Shulk."_

 _"Shulk?" Snake repeats the man's name, as if he's breathing life into him. "Why?"_

 _The president, still vice president at the time, looks up from the book, face stained with tears. "I write down one for every Syrenet agent who has died in service."_

 _"Service?_ _Service, Robin? He betrayed the country! He betrayed us! He betrayed himself!"_

 _"He still served for us!" she snaps, standing up._

It's how he's gotten to this point, arguing with her constantly for several months that he doesn't deserve such a reward, such a memory. He's stained it and there's no way to get it back, but Snake Karlo, now as vice president, is glad he isn't running the country. The betrayal he felt via Shulk's insurgency and dedication to Corrin, while affecting him, hasn't _affected_ him.

What gets him the most, whenever he finds himself thinking about Shulk and how the Detroit era came to a hold, is that there used to be a time, even after Fiora's death, the man had been vibrant and alive. Most often he comes back to the Geneva mission... a mission where it's him, Ike, and Shulk stuck in Geneva by carpet bombers, having to fight their way out of an apartment building that is larger than most in America, pitch black hallways, poisonous gas seeping out of vents... and Snake has never seen such a more talented fighter. He's heard of Fiora being an amazing Syrenet agent, but he's never gotten to see her in action. He, however?

It is as if Shulk had been painting with the way blood went spraying this way or that way onto the pallid walls. Bullets ricochet off of walls and hit foes, his knife is dripping with crimson droplets after he's done and they're back into light. Ike had been in the back the entire time, letting Snake and Shulk do the heavy duty work. That saddens the vice president, too, that the two ended up fighting and killing each other. A story that couldn't have happened any other way.

He looks down at Shulk's tombstone, a few various flowers still placed on the left side. As far as he's aware, Shulk's parents are still alive, and Fiora had an older brother and younger sister, estranged from them however. There's a rose, a teddy bear - why a teddy bear, Snake frowns to himself - and a beautiful picture of Shulk when he had been a child.

The tombstone stone reads,

" _Killed by loyalty._ "

"Definitely..." Snake mutters to himself. "Just the wrong kind of loyalty."

All he has to do, which is Robin's argument the entire time, is that she did it for Fiora. She's done it for other Syrenet agents who have tried pulling the wool over Corrin's eyes before the corruption had gone too deep. Why should Shulk be any different? Just because of _who_ he killed, versus why he did it? She's not finding that very fair, and he's hard pressed to agree, but she wins over in the end. A back massage might've helped, but it still leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

Snake opens up Robin's journal, going to Shulk's page. It reads,

 _The quintessential example of a Syrenet agent. Like his wife, Fiora, Shulk was a dedicated man, husband, citizen, and friend to America. He'll not go quiet, he went into that good night with vicariousness and strength. We will not see his likes again._

 _~ Signed via vice-president, turned president Robin Wyndel_

How much of that makes sense, Snake isn't going to argue with. He's said how much he can over this topic. Those that have fought against the country, trying to put themselves first and above the orderliness of the country, they're now dead to him. No ifs, ands, or buts.

He rips the page out of the journal, letting it fall to the ground. If it gets blown away, eaten by a squirrel or rabid dog, matted by the rain... Snake doesn't care. All Robin told him had been to drop the tribute off at Shulk's grave. She never specified how.

Snake exits the cemetery, getting back into the Cadillac.

With one era of Syrenet ending, another one is beginning.

The new project is going to be Code Black.

To rewrite the code that is Syrenet.

America is not going to be ready.

* * *

 **Well ladies and gentlemen... here we are, at the end of Chapter #39.**

 **I don't have the time to write a long AN, but the gist is that everyone has gotten promoted and that LUCAS IS BACK! Can you believe it? He's back! Everyone wrote him off, including I, but he getting destroyed by Shulk like that in Detroit did not feel like a good ending for me. Someone needed to survive Shulk's wrath after being targeted directly. I do think that he and Roy's conversation, marking the end of our AI Unit's arc, has been the most wholesome scene and arc ending for this story.**

 **Which section was ya'lls favorite of the six? Robin is now president... Snake has exposed some true feelings, Midna admits love, Roy holds back, Sheik's a fugitive... and perhaps we have new characters? Who are they?**

 **And now, 17.6k words later, we're here at Chapter #40. The end. The planned end, and I want to cry. I am definitely planning on having the last chapter out before December 17th, which, two years ago was when I posted Chapter #1: Foundations of Earth, a measly 3.1k to now I am writing 17000 word chapters which is unbelievable to me. I'd love to hear ya'lls thoughts on this chapter and perhaps how it will end in general. Chapter #40: In Memoriam, is on its way. Please review, I'd love to hear your thoughts. I hope you all have an amazing day / evening. Love you all! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	40. Chapter 40: In Memoriam

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with the final chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #40: In Memoriam. Man, I am one sentence in and I am already getting choked up. It's here... it's the end of this forty-chapter long epic and I can't believe this day has finally arrived. After a lot of rewriting and rewriting and even more editing after that we are at the tumultuous end - well, not tumultuous but you get my point - and I just have to say I don't know what I am going to do with my life now that this is over. Review replies!**

 **Mr. Squirtle6- I appreciate the compliment, the chapter took a lot outta me to do. Corrin, to me, was still perhaps my favorite character just in her design, let alone the actual writing I wrote for her, but I agree, it's hard to know if you** ** _like_** **her. I was really happy to write Lucas back in, you all wrote him off as dead like Ness, but I found a way around it. And you're right, the conclusion is here.**

 **SeththeGreat- I also appreciate your commentary towards Shulk: I just remember you saying that he was weak, and I really don't like having 'weak' creations per say. He and Roy were the same two sides of a coin, and the two didn't really realize it; I think Roy realized it when shouting at Corrin about his best friend being taken from him. Roy's ending has left me slightly cold to the fact: he's gone through a** ** _lot,_** **and Midna + Pit have survived it all! Snake being Snake has always been fun, but I think this is the deepest I've written his character, given him a few facets I didn't know were possible. And yes, bless Robin Wyndel's heart.**

 **Derick Lindsay- Lucas coming back was always planned, the one Shulk's corruption couldn't touch. He's too pure. The final chapter here isn't 3000 words, the** ** _first_** **one was. This one is in the same ballpark of 17k-18k... *grins sheepishly* I'm glad you liked Icarus Chronicle! I just reread it recently and lord do I need to fix some of its problems. I think Robin will do a pretty bang-up job; she's fine.**

 **CrashGuy01- I'm glad you liked the chapter, it took a good four or five days of constant churning to get it through. Midna's feelings for Mac / Roy have been perhaps the hardest part of the story, not necessarily because it's romance - as I generally am told I handle those quite well - but just in how I fit them into her and Roy's arcs, and I think I did decent. Those new characters are for something I can't reveal just yet... you'll hear about it though. And don't worry, Marth's back.**

 **Okay, guys... here goes nothing. Enjoy the last chapter of Syrenet, #40: In Memoriam.**

* * *

He is standing upright after having sat down for the longest time, eyes staring down at the toiled soil, a gravestone popping out in the midst of all the others. Marth holds a bouquet of flowers to his chest, eyes staring down at Ike Forgenson's tombstone, trying to conceptualize the fact that he's gone. It's a whirlwind of emotion, being nearly killed, to then being flown back to a safe place that isn't D.C as apparently Corrin's destroyed it all and then it is the news of finding out his partner in crime, his buddy, his Ike Forgenson... has died.

Marth wipes at his eyes, tears starting to fall. It is not an unmanly thing to cry, he's always hated that assertion from others who think they are better than him. He wants to shoot them back in the spine and see how _they_ recover, that'd be a good test at seeing who is stronger than someone else. He's not allowed to be alive, Marth rationalizes, something should've slayed him back then. Had it not been Oklahoma City, then the bullet through his spine in Chicago could've done the trick, and if not there, the Operation Falchion with Detroit should've ended it all. Yet here he stands, upright, proud, shoulders down, and alive.

All he's done is run from the fight yet here he is.

"Good morning Ike," he says, looking down at his feet. "You look great," Yes, he understands the vibes of his words, but he could careless. There isn't another single soul in all of Syrenet that could fill the hole Ike has left behind, it simply isn't possible. Someone with a heart of gold like that, an understanding of happiness and bliss, he can't find anyone else like that. If Robin could fight... _maybe,_ but Marth has never been a betting man. "I'm sorry I wasn't there for the funeral. You know I would've been the first person to arrive and the last to leave."

A choked sob escapes his throat.

"I can't believe you didn't make it..." he cries, looking down again. Inside, however, a fueling rage burns in him. Ike dies, just like Shulk, to loyalty. Ike has loyalty to the country, loyalty to the people who live in it, an understanding and trust of true justice. Not some ham-fisted thing the silver viper conjures up in her lair after one too many vodka tonics. He forgot how long he broke when Roy is the one who breaks it to him that the moment Ike's guard fell is when the vicious blonde says that _he_ is dead, simply a lie, simply a ruse.

It isn't as if Ike is shot. He's stabbed through the heart, and then his neck is slit open. Marth's lunch and dinner from earlier reappear on his bathroom floor when the redhead mentions how he died... all because Marth asks like the stupid idiot he is. He is not upset to admit that when he finds out that Shulk dies by essentially falling to his death, shot through the heart, he jumps for joy as best he can. That someone he and Ike trusted for so long could do something so terrible... it destroys him. The curtains are drawn together, his house is silent, and Marth does not emerge to the outside world for a week.

"I'm the only one left," Marth wrings his hands together. "I'm the last of the main three commanders..." he looks up at the sky, scoffing somewhat, sniffling. "I would've thought to be the first one to go. Out of everyone. Out of us three, Roy, Pit, Midna... and yet I am alive..." a pause, where he innocuously rubs his shoulder. "I hope, wherever you are, that you're happy. Carefree. Not in pain."

Marth rubs a hand through his hair, holding beryl roots tight. He doesn't want to keep the same color of blue for his hair anymore. No one in the damn world has blue hair legitimately and yet he's been living for several years with follicles the color of blueberries. He'll go back to a more natural color... being a brown-haired guy like Snake or Pit has never bothered him. He honestly forgets what he looks like without blue colored hair. Unfortunately, he'll get to see what it means to return back to the normal world, as keeping the blue hair is too reminiscent of Ike and there's enough stories for his nightmares that having his best friend be alive when he really isn't is not one of them the commander is looking forward to him.

When his phone rings because Vice President - _president, Marthy, she's president now. Use respect._ \- Robin is calling him, asking to reinstate back into Syrenet, to go back into the job that nearly killed him thrice over just in the last two months. Others would be cussing the president out right there on the spot, vicious words flying everywhere in tones and pitches louder than the ability of usual human hearing, but Marth preservers.

"I'm uh... I'm going back to work, Ike," Marth says, bringing his lips lift to lift together in a light, ghostly smile. "I'm gonna be the Beta Commander still, in case something goes wrong." He swallows something heavy down his throat, a building up of guilt perhaps, a log of despair and sadness. "Robin's thinking of using as more of a peacekeeping mission. Like the United Nations."

Despite the two's shared history, he can picture Ike clapping his burly hand down on his shoulder and demanding he rescind his offer. That he go back and lie in the ground. Not because he doesn't think Marth is capable, which he's always been the strongest supporter of those endeavors, but that he does not want to see Marth get injured. The rehired commander cannot believe, something he mulls over for hours at a time now, is that the last thing he ever said to Ike had been to leave him alone, about wanting to die... and it seems he's been denied the afterlife brought to so many people in the last few months in the place he's visited. That promises can't be kept...

It had been a very tough first two weeks, sitting in his bedroom by himself, looking through closed shutters, shadows falling along the cupboards and floor panels. There's a terror holding a gun in every corner, and any time there's the sound of a mouse footfall, Marth scrambles for a pistol, clutching it to his chest, occasionally pointing it _his_ way instead of at the invisible danger. Robin's call sort of brings him back to life, yet he does not emerge. He's content with staying in his Pennsylvanian home surrounded by friends and family until the end of his days.

Marth is standing upright as of now, looking down at Ike's grave.

He's _standing straight_ with no wheelchair.

"Robin's got me back on my feet," he smiles to himself, knowing that Ike would be bursting into tears right now if he could physically be there. "I don't just mean that metaphorically, Ike. I'm- I'm standing again. Neurosurgeons and a whole lot of physical therapy." He looks down at his legs, but he surely cannot call them _his._ Long pieces of conjoined metal just out from his torso, built in by screws and nuts and bolts and praying and perhaps even magic, he's upright on his feet. "This is the reason why I'm going back to work. Originally I was just going to stay home, well, _forever,_ in my wheel chair, but she pushed through to develop a whole new realm of science and medicine. I got my legs back. I have my _back,_ back..." and not only would Ike be crying, Marth is bawling right now, tears falling to the soil, growing flowers in their place.

Marth could've been walking with his own two feet and legs, which he _had,_ but when he looks down at his own flesh, he does not recognize it. He does not recognize himself staring back, and so he wants them gone, amputated. All of it. A procedure in which Robin definitely fights him on, but if war generals and officers and soldiers can have things torn off and put back together again surely he can too. He's gone through some shitty hell that a few soldiers out east would certainly understand.

He has no idea why he even thinks to bring it up, because he's sure that Ike has to longer be listening, either in the time of his life, or the worst time in his life. He knows - Marth, that is - that he sort of made fun of Robin's faith back in that restaurant sipping ginger ale and waters, but he hopes now, however painful it might be, that someone ominous is having Ike's best intentions in mind, because certainly Corrin and Shulk, two who were supposed to be there, weren't. The great deceivers deceived one last soul.

One last soul that touches Marth in the hardest to see places.

"Roy's thinking of leaving Syrenet forever." Marth rubs his feet together, the metal underneath long dress slacks and his button down. He gives a slight chuckle to the wind. "I have no idea how to convince him to stay. I wish you were here so you could keep him. Without Roy... none of us would be here talking to you today. With him gone, it's just another piece I can't get back."

Despite Corrin and Shulk being gone, evil as they were, Marth realizes, he'll miss them in the strangest of ways. That silver-headed snake had never been on his side, simply because he is the bargaining piece in all of this. He wonders, had he not been shot through the spine, had Chicago gone smoothly with no sort of vicious rebels popping their heads out of ant hills... where would Corrin have gone? The bluenette figures, as coldly, and perhaps as crazy as it sounds, that Corrin would've used Shulk to cross him off of a list; that Marth would die or seriously be injured as the scapegoat to jump towards Detroit and the Needle and use it as leverage. Ike wouldn't have thought anything differently, and then down the rabbit hole they'd all go.

"I can't do this alone, Ike," he says with great pain in his chest. Marth is lucky to still have both of his parents whilst nearing his thirties in very good health, all of his brothers and sisters of which there's one of each. His siblings live in Montana, running some sort of cattle business, with several children to their names all the while Marth remains childless. It hits him, that with Shulk dead, not remarrying or having any kids via adoption or anything like that... the Roberts line ended. Fiora and her child, gone. Shulk's parents are gone. Shulk himself has no siblings, _gone._ That hits him like a brick. "I can't do it alone," he says once more, resolute with a firmness in his voice. "There's a shift going on in the world, which I can feel, and whatever happens, I need someone like you by my side to face it as I sure as hell can't go hiding because of it. I can't be like Roy and quit, when I've gone through just a lot as him, if not more since the very beginning. There's no one like you to fill that hole though..." he rubs the back of his head.

It is a pretty day today, so far, a very few clouds lining the azure sky, no forecast of rain so far scheduled anytime in the day. He has to get to Washington as quick as he can; festivities in a day for something Robin has only deemed important, to be meant in memoriam. If there's a national funeral service for someone like Shulk or Corrin, Marth might give in his pink slip. He misses them sure, but they're traitors and traitors do not deserve honoring ceremonies of any kind. It'll be ironic that the pardoning or honoring or even remembrance of those two could be what sends Marth away, and not some bough of depression or fear or anything like that.

"I'll figure it out though, you know I always do," he wrings his hands together. "I wish you could see the sky today, Ike. It's- it's _beautiful._ " He lifts his head back up at the tombstone. He remembers what Roy told him when he had seen Ike's body on the plane flying back to a safe house, with the throat sewn back together, dressed finely in something that is not his Syrenet suit, that piece of shit tossed to the side. He can feel the pain in Roy's words when the redhead describes himself falling to the ground and crying, emotion welling up in his throat, and then it all comes out when the redhead confronts Corrin, shots go firing, and the world doesn't explode in nuclear fire power.

"Wherever you are, Ike, I hope you're happy. That- that all of these problems here don't affect you, that you stay far away from that. Thank you for always being there for me, thank you for being the brother that no one else could do," he looks down at the flowers he's clutching. "I, as weird as it might be... I brought you flowers. Azaleas... even though it is not the season for them, I thought you would want them."

Ike's gravestone is very well decorated, even a smiling picture of the commander plastered on it by the side, heart-warming and sweet. Other bunches of flowers are there by a few of Ike's other closest friends outside of the Syrenet solider group. His mother is no longer alive, she having died when he had been young - Marth does not like to think of that story - and Ike's dog did not make it pass the bluenette's teen years. He forgets where Ike's father is, but Marth knows the man has not been to his son's grave. Despite all the decorations, Marth feels like Ike's grave feels somewhat empty. That these.. adorning pieces of flora and balloons and pictures and ribbons are nothing more than mere spectacle.

Did anyone know Ike like Marth did? Probably not. He sort of takes pride in that.

"Goodbye, Ike," a welling builds in Marth's throat, and he doesn't dab at his eyes, as he doesn't need to. Sometimes letting the emotion out is the best thing he can do. "Even if no one else here on Earth remembers, you... I _will_."

The commander places the azaleas next to the tombstone, turning his back and walking towards his car.

He wipes at his eyes. Yes, he's crying, and he probably will continue to cry.

However, crying is over. There's a future on the horizon, a tension settling over his skin.

Marth has to be strong when it comes, not weak.

And if he isn't when that happens...

He doesn't want to think of that outcome.

* * *

The high and mighty life is exactly what Midna pictured when being promoted to FBI director. Not necessarily being as rich with a salary as the president or vice president or anything like that, but she definitely knew that being FBI director would be kinda cool. She thought it meant a few relaxing evenings out on her porch of her home, with mint juleps and martinis, perhaps binge watching a show or two on TV when time calls for it.

She did not know that FBI director meant paperwork stacked a mile high. Midna, as smart as she wants to assume herself to be, sort of did think it is simply getting on a plane and overseeing certain operations, or firing a gun at someone every once in awhile. Come to think of it though, as her mouth falls to the floor when Snake arrives with the first heavy load of paperwork entailing all the, her boss never did have a day off. Not one, or at least not one where he spends the entire time in boxers and no shirt on his couch watching the latest HBO drama.

Midna's been underneath Snake's helm of guidance for several years and she's kept this childish dream alive. How quaint... perhaps even how silly.

Currently sitting on her cluttered desk, which is in Snake's office with the door facing her, a laptop in her direction, is a stack of six or seven manila folders and inside of them several work cases. She's currently perusing through one in particular that has her raising her eyebrows in confusion, surprise, and even at times, horror. Robin in Austria, visiting for some sort of diplomatic purposes, is to be staying at a hotel, where another a few blocks down explodes upon her arrival at the airport, not in the hotel. She - Robin - assumes it to be an assassination attempt on someone else, not her, as it isn't her hotel, but it is linked into her arrival. It happens a few months before Roy is hired by Corrin into the Syrenet program, and Midna recalls hearing Snake assign some other agent to the case, but that's the last she's heard of it.

Until today. Apparently, there's been someone who claims ownership to the crime, a guy who only goes by the title of ' _The White Wolf_ ' and immediately it has Midna raising her eyebrows. Looking at the shot that comes with the file, one of the only few shots there are of the alleged criminal, has chills running down her spine. The guy seems to be quite young, at least her age, if not a bit older. Piercing amber - surely contacts, Midna believes, no one has _red_ eyes - eyes that cut through hers like a blade to flesh, tousled dark hair that is messier than a mesh of barbed wire.

And are those _wings_ from his back?

On further reading on a later page, it turns out that this White Wolf fellow constructed a pair of wings to stimulate flight, powered by some sort of energy that Midna would like to harness right now. A jetpack... but _cooler._

Midna wants to know why, in this very instance, it looks like she's staring at Pit's deformed and evil twin. What sucks is that this White Wolf fellow is a handsome devil. Gorgeous, in fact, but Midna has never known anyone in the justice department of all realms for the United States to fall in love or be smitten with a criminal that they're after. The White Wolf, again ironic mostly due to his hair color more than anything, has been connected to several bombings worldwide, in what Midna wants to believe to be linked operations, but she's not finding one. All the targets seem to be in proximity to a place where a diplomat from other countries are located, but again, no pattern to it. The targets, unfortunately kill people, and there's a pattern in that one; it's the number 32. 32 people die in each explosion or altercation or whatever has been linked to the terrorist, which is the word Midna has used.

There's no American soil attacks, but Midna isn't so sure that this will always be the case. With Corrin doing all her dirty work, leading the country nonetheless, it means there's a chink in the armor, a weak spot, a place that any enemy that wants to burrow their way in has access to. All Midna can do is look back at the picture, where the person is even looking straight into the camera, first name unknown to the database, that gaze cutting through her bones.

A shiver runs through her.

She's about to put the folder away when her phone, placed on the desk, closest to the lamp, begins vibrating, indicating she has a call.

Midna places the folder back into place, grabbing her phone. The caller ID is unknown, which makes Midna frown. She thought, at least that is what Snake and Robin have told her, due to technological advancements that even if the caller ID is unknown, it'll tell her _where_ the call is from. Not even that appears on the call screen. The redhead picks it up anxiously.

"Hello?" she says into it.

An all too familiar voice enters her ear, causing her blood to boil. "I believe congratulations are in order, right?"

Midna locks her jaw, turning side faced somewhat, her chair following her body. "How'd you get this number?"

"Doesn't matter," the person on the other end ignores the question. "Being promoted to FBI director! That's amazing."

"Sheik..." Midna hisses through clenched teeth. "How are you calling me on this number?" She's changed her number due to privacy and protection policies and all that for a reason; it's important she does that to keep any sort of tails on her alright. The announcement to the public happened only a while ago, with only several papers having the ability to publish headlines about it. It shouldn't have reached the global market yet, for others to know about it. Midna knows that this woman, this vile woman Sheik is not in the United States. She wouldn't dare call if she were.

"I have my ways, Amber," the blonde teases her.

"Do not call me that!" Midna hisses into the phone.

"Someone sounds like they woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning."

Midna pinches the bridge of her nose. This is not what she's wanted to wake up to today, certainly not. She thinks it'll be a great day, actually, with getting physical work done and yet there's nothing more infuriating. The absolute gall of the woman on the other end is astonishing, Midna cannot believe this coward is even calling her. Yet again, she's always known that there's been a loose screw somewhere, and being the lovechild between Cloud and Corrin, having that silverette as your mother could only spell towards disaster. There's one thing Corrin had gotten right; she shouldn't have been a mother.

"Where are you? I imagine you're not in the United States."

"No, of course I'm not," Midna can picture Sheik giving a huge smile on the other end, thinking she is playing the redhead like a fiddle or some other instrument. That's not how life works. "Doesn't matter." There's a pause, but Midna does not fill in its gap. She's pretty sure that this call is Sheik Braring declaring something to the world, whatever that _something_ might be. "So, was there a funeral for my Mom? The woman who was going to ruin the United States? She have a huge procession and a lot of crying and moaning and shit?"

Midna remembers the rather solidary funeral. It is not televised, although there were a few news outlets talking about it, but that's all. Robin speaks, Snake speaks, and Midna is compelled to speak by the other two, but she refuses. The woman is buried in the ground and that's all that happens. As far as the FBI director is aware, no one is mourning the woman terribly.

"No. Private matter."

"Good," Sheik's voice is hard. Cold. "She died with a whimper."

" _Sheik_ ," Midna's tone is cold and cutting too, her own voice cutting through sandpaper, bone, and flesh alike. Something occurs to her, then. "That's how you'll die, too. A whimper."

"Please..." the rebel drawls out a breath, and this lets out a rage under Midna's skin, scalding blisters popping up everywhere, inflammatory remarks lighting a cigarette that causes a Mt. Saint Helens eruption. "You're comparing me to the woman who single handedly managed to blind the entire administration of her treason and nearly got away with it? My mother was terrible."

"And you're no better. You killed more people." Doing the math, that's probably correct. Forty or so died in Oklahoma City. A few rebels alongside that number, but Midna doesn't remember those exact numbers. In the surprise attack on Portland, one of Link Collins' factories which supplied the pieces of C4 used in Detroit had about one hundred or so dying in the fire fall. Chicago is about four hundred, if not more. At the end of the day, due to the rebels, main citizens, and Detroit army fighting, with the explosions in the streets, and the collapsing buildings and all of that... estimates were rising to around thirty thousand people. The entire downtown area of that city, turned country, which is hanging by a mere thread, is demolished. Hospitals, businesses, a whole subway system... Sheik has killed more people across all of her four efforts to try and bring Corrin down to then try and escape justice. Currently _escaping_ said justice.

"Oh... so now we're doing a numbers comparison?" There's a scoff on Sheik's end. "How many terrorists and criminals and most wanted people have you brought to justice yet?"

"Three," Midna replies.

"Very good!" Sheik claps her hands on the other end. "And am I on it?"

"You're currently number one."

"Like I expected."

Midna can tell anyone she sees on the street, that if she thought, three or four years ago that she'd be leading the FBI and one of her closest friends in college would be a domestic terrorist now currently on the run, she'd call them crazy. Now? Give that special someone that must've predicted it a sum of a million dollars for being right on the money.

"Where are you?"

"Somewhere," Sheik responds cryptically.

"You know I'm tracking the call. There'll be forces heading your way immediately. Even a few Syrenet groups."

"Good. I'll be gone by then."

"Damn straight you will be..." Midna says, disappointed in her reaction. She shouldn't even be _saying_ things like that to her, this traitor, this killer of American citizens. But she has to give the blonde some sort of respect. She's been at it for at least a few years now, starting with inklings of uprisings and political discord or unease. It is a game of cat and mouse, and all the redhead has to do is see ahead far enough to give herself some sort of advantage. One is on the horizon, but she can't exactly tell what it is supposed to be.

It is all too complicated, this world of politics. Midna imagines that this White Wolf terrorist, they'll be elevated _onto_ the list, as the second most wanted person in the world. And there, in shining glory, is Sheik at the top.

"Y'know, I sort of do miss the United States."

"You want to come back to them in a wooden box?" Midna snarks back.

"I can tell you still haven't lost your vicarious edge yet, Midna," and then a laugh follows that statement. "No, I'm not planning on returning, if ever. You, Robin, Snake, everyone else... I don't think I actually have a problem with you all. Just my mother and her terrible needs that had to be stopped. If you guys weren't smart enough to smell the roses and see it, someone was going to. It happened to me," the director can picture her shrugging her shoulders. "So people died? Big deal. You guys don't do anything about it when people die in the Middle East."

"It's _different,_ " Midna argues.

"Is it?"

"You were going to turn yourself in!" the redhead shouts, jumping to her feet, eyes enlarging in rage. "You recorded yourself on YouTube saying you were going to turn yourself in to the world, to the _world,_ Sheik, and we agreed to have you help take Corrin down and then you ran! You ran away and now you're hiding like a coward. You probably don't regret anything, do you? Not a single word of what you said was true. Am I right?"

She's expecting, she's honest to god expecting something along the lines that Sheik still does harbor some sort of pain and misunderstanding and anger in her soul over it all, but none of that comes out. None of it. "You're right, Midna. I _lied._ I lied about how I felt. Sure, it is terrible that this many people had to die until I helped bring my mother's reign to an end... but it was _necessary._ You'd do anything necessary to protect the United States, right? As your duty?"

"Of course..."

"The same as mine."

Midna doesn't have a rebuttal to that. Well, she _does,_ but it isn't very good. "You don't get to compare you and I anymore, Sheik. You've lost that right."

"I suppose it's too late in the game to ask whether or not I am going to be getting a Christmas present this year or not."

"How about a tactical nuke destroying your van? That sound alright?"

"More than enough, Midna. You'd spare no expense," Sheik smiles on the other end, a sickly sweetness wafting from her voice.

Midna clutches the phone closer to her neck, where she can feel her own pulse through the plastic encasement, where there's a slight buzzing that comes off of the machine when she's not thinking about it. She's swimming in a sea of thoughts right now, unsure of where to land. What is she supposed to say back? She is going to hunt this Sheik Braring down until it is the last thing she does. Snake is forcing her to a promise, and whoever is unable to satisfy his promise, he'll boot right out. Midna knows very well that there is nothing more sour tasting in the mouth than being evicted from a promoted position of power after working so hard to get there.

She is not going down without a fight.

"Every day, Sheik, you're on my mind. Every day I am thinking about how I am going to get you to the States, dead or alive," Midna whispers into the phone, praying to anyone who'd listen that her voice is threatening enough in the tone. That'd be awkward if it isn't, certainly. "You're not going to get to live your life in serenity anymore. Always looking over your shoulder to make sure you're not being tailed. Sleeping armed, one eye open..."

"I know, oh I know," the other woman's voice is mocking. "And that excites me. The thrill of knowing you'll fail. The thrill of knowing I'll forever be out of your hands. I can beat you at your own game, Midna," and then the tone drops more, her words vicious and stinging. "Don't forget, Midna, if I go down, you're going down with me. You're indicted too, in all of this. Surely someone thinks it."

"I'm free from your entanglements, Sheik."

"You say that, but you will never be." Another pause. "And besides, my days of rebelling and political fighting are over. I've achieved my goal. I'll live my life in peace, thank you very much."

A shudder runs through Midna's skin, from the base of her neck and all the way down to the tips of her toes.

"Keep an eye on your six, Sheik."

"And yours too, Midna."

"I'll hunt down you even if it's just me having do it," Midna threatens.

"Game on," Sheik hisses.

The line goes dead, and Midna retracts the phone away from her ear, looking at the device strangely for a few seconds. The girl's words run underneath her with a chill, goosebumps starting to appear on her skin.

All of a sudden Midna grabs her phone, chucking it to the other side of the room. It collides into a wall, probably breaking apart, but she's doesn't care. Sheik is currently winning, and there's nothing the redhead can do.

She turns her hand into a fist, pounding her desk.

That blonde witch is going down, one way or another.

* * *

Robin's only been president for a short time, and being vice president allowed her some time to rest. Now? There's been several nights, even straight days where all she has is boughs of insomnia keeping her up till the wee hours of the morning, unable to fall asleep, to only wake up and do it all again. She wipes at her eyes, then knocking over a container full of pens onto her desk.

"Dammit..." she hisses to herself. Yes, Robin Wyndel just swore. She knows how terrible it is to do so, but when there's Corrin and Snake by her every movement all the time, which is the truth, swearing four letter cuss words that she dare not repeat in any sanctity, then saying dammit once or twice here or there is not the end of the world. Robin stops her work to grab them back up, putting them once more into the container. She moves it over to the far corner of her desk so she doesn't hit it again. There's nothing worse than minor interruptions to work, as all interruptions that cause work to cease inhibit progress, and Robin Wyndel is not someone that'll allow inhibited progress in her presidency.

The silverette lies awake all night, staring at the etchings in the ceiling to see what shapes she can make out of the plaster, thoughts bombarded by criticisms and theories of how her presidency is only going to ride on the coattails of her predecessor. She has to tell the truth to the American people on what had happened over the last few weeks, how the rebels themselves had been right in some strange sort of capacity... and that thought perturbs her when she's caught off guard. All the killing that has happened, it is an inherent way to target Corrin and try to stop the Syrenet machine from running. To dismantle the operation means there's no scapegoat in the Needle.

It is the reasoning behind all the attacks on the Syrenet locations for possible headquarters, all the people coming forward and turning themselves in base their reasoning on that. There's one individual who survived Oklahoma City, promoted to a higher rank in Chicago, and even is one leading the charge in Detroit that survives all of it, surviving Sheik's madness and Corrin's madness and says that the only reason these attacks happened, despite Sheik never mentioning it outright, is to kill Corrin, cut the viper's head off and hope two more wouldn't grow in its place. The man shrugs, in the interrogation chamber, Snake and Midna inside together, that the other deaths of the people combating them were unfortunate, but then that word pops up once more in his word choice: 'necessary.'

It is _necessary._

"Necessary..." Robin says aloud, rubbing her chin. "Necessary..."

For some reason, something about that word sends chills down her spine. It is used as an excuse to try and twist whatever areas of life she wants, whatever anyone wants to twist and try to use for their own selfish gain. It is an idea that scares her, actually, to what lengths people will go to get their own agendas at the forefront. She'll figure that she'll be using the term, 'necessary', a lot. Perhaps in war room situations that it is _necessary_ a terrorist organization out of Russia be bombed to hell and back, or extremists hiding out somehow in the Everglades getting their place swamped by vicious crocodiles and alligators... the lengths Robin may go to try and have the world safe and kept that way is something she hasn't dwelled on that long.

She wants to be unlike the president before her, where even though she sat just one rung under, and she likes to have called it some sort of political partnership, it is far less than that. None of that existed beforehand, with each other, as Corrin always found that anytime Robin made some sort of political decision, large or small without having her verify it first, insulted the sitting president. It'd be this way every time, she and Robin stand still on the airplane tarmac waiting for Air Force One and Corrin throws barbs in every direction she can think of. Robin deflects the jargon and vitriol, saying it is for the betterment of the country.

" _And what betterment did hiring Mac do for the country?"_ Robin thinks to herself, bitterly. " _All it did was get him killed because he apparently saw more than he should've..._ "

It is true, in part, that whenever Robin goes to think for herself she ends up doing something far worse, where her decision hits an unbelievable amount of bull crap at the front door. How there are consequences the silverette is unable to see. Due to Ganondorf killing the Council of Thirteen, Mac snoops on Corrin's work computer. Mac is murdered that evening by Shulk, played off to be a rebel who snuck into the compound, giving Corrin another paranoid reason to try and use the Needle. Robin finds it simple enough in her mind. Had she not hired Mac Sarasota, perhaps that avenue of events might not have happened. She figures, had Mac not been there as a personal secret service agent, Shulk is to be in the room instead, or rather _outside_ of the room.

That has to have things go smoothly after all, Robin likes to think, as Shulk is in on the entire plan, pushing forward and forward and forward to go use the Needle. All the pushback he gives Corrin in the hospital, the president now realizes, has to be spectacle. If he loved his wife so much as he always prattled on about, then he does not cross a foot over the Michigan state border. It is that easy enough of an assessment to make. Robin sometimes places someone else in Mac's position there, for he is the one who barged into the council chamber after hearing the three officials of state scream in terror. Midna is not in the room because she is not at the same position of power or importance as Snake, and again, Mac's privilege. The men setting up shop needed someone to make sure they didn't blow themselves up; Midna Nye fits the position tenfold.

Robin juts her jaw to the side somewhat, locking it in place, eyes falling away from the work she is doing, one hand stilled, the other closing into a fist around the pen she is holding. Shame wells up in her heart. "I got Mac killed..." she says, guilt ridden through her tone, and she sets the pen down.

The work is some sort of law that Congress is trying to have passed via taxation, but Robin doesn't have the time for it. She's more distracted, truth be told, than ever. Tomorrow is a ceremonious day designed to help the country heal, designed to help the country get past a certain recent episode. She should be focused on that, but here Robin is doing 'busy work.'

She stands up from the desk, going over to one of the windows, pushing back the curtain. It is a gorgeous day outside, from what she can see. It is ironic, how she thinks about it, how often she does not go outside anymore, how little sunlight she sees. There's a certain metaphor in all of that, Robin is sure, but again, she does not have the time to think like that. The lawn is identical to the previous one, although the scars of the fire riddled explosion can still be seen sometimes on the grass. The plot is empty right now, visits not open to the public for another month or so, and even then, the highest amount of security detail that are going the largest and strongest vetting process in history via Robin, Snake, and Midna's eyes will be taking place. Roy is helping with that, needing to find someplace for him to settle since he feels like he belongs nowhere.

A bit of sound disrupts her train of thought off behind her, causing Robin to turn.

It's Snake, coming into the Oval Office, a stack of folders in his arms. He pauses in the doorway, noticing Robin's body language. It is quite the interesting ticket, in truth, seeing Robin Wyndel and Snake Karlo head a democratic party.

"You okay, Robin?" he asks, concernedly. Always concernedly. Robin's liked that about him ever since they met, mirroring a bit of her actually. She's always asking - always _asked,_ she corrects herself - Corrin if she's alright, and now he as vice president is a breath of fresh air.

"I'm fine," she waves his concern away with a hand. It is not meant to be a dismissal of his concern, it is... it is _necessary._ A noticeable chill runs through her body. "Just stressed a bit."

Snake looks back in the direction he had come from. "I was just talking with a few of the cabinet members on what to do with our security for tomorrow. And in my hand is a last minute stack of decisions if you want to look over them and decide-"

"Use them all," Robin cuts him off, sitting back down in her chair, grabbing the pen and starting to look over the new Congress taxation law that she'll probably just end up vetoing.

This baffles the vice president, he nearly dropping the files in his hands. He sets them down on one of the couches closest to him, shutting the door to the Oval Office. This causes her to look up, and she swears, just before Snake presses the door in one last time with a shove, that a wave of red hair, a darker mahogany shade, and a wave of blue are visible in the crease of the doorway before it vanishes. She blinks, rubbing the tiredness out of her eyes. Pit is not in D.C, he's currently giving another lecture, this time on Artificial Intelligence, Midna is back in her office across the capital, and Marth is off in Pennsylvania, visiting Ike's final resting place. The three will all come together for tomorrow's festivities, but they're not in the White House right now. She would've been alerted.

"Robin, something must be wrong. You aren't dismissive like this," Snake crosses his arms over his chest.

"I'm fine," she insists, gritting her teeth. "I'm just trying to work."

"You've been trying to work for the last week and haven't been getting much done."

"Well, you certainly interrupting me is not going to help either!" Robin snaps, lifting her head up in his direction angrily. Her hair flaps around her face as she lifts her head, her breathing cutting in and out quickly. As soon as she bites back at him, she stills, the silverette setting the pen down on the desk. Snake's eyes appraise over her gently, frowning somewhat, just somewhat. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I shouldn't have yelled. I'm- I'm just stressed." She runs one hand down her face. "I don't want to be like her. I want to be better than her. Holding no secrets, no hidden agendas. Just good politics. _Real_ politics."

"And you're going to do that," he quickly says on top of her. Snake walks over to the other side of the desk, grabbing the president by the hands, fingers plaiting into the joint bones of the wrist, a slight amount of pressure designating comfort, release, sympathy. Robin locks eyes with him suddenly, almost jarringly. "You're not Corrin, Robin. You're the farthest person from her that I've ever met. There's not one ounce of viciousness in you. Maybe politics finally needs someone who is strong enough like that."

"I'm afraid..." tears begin to well in the silverette's eyes. "I'm afraid that the years are going to twist me."

"Then we don't run in 2100," Snake admonishes, applying a bit more pressure. "If the remainder of Corrin's second term is bothering you too much then I have no problem not being alongside you and us not running for office. But if you work, if _this_ works, then we have a real good shot at making this country something to be proud of. We don't have use Corrin's exact vision for the country, Robin, if we don't want to. We can start entirely off from scratch."

"I'm scared of that too..." she whispers, hugging her head to her chest. Robin is more than terrified of having the magnanimous power of the Oval Office get to her head, where there's a cloud that'll loom over her head, twist the words and thoughts that she'll think, and then she becomes a monster. Robin knew that politics has that siren song interwoven into its promises, that there's always been a chance, but when she's elected senator, and then Corrin wants her to be her running mate, Robin assumes the best in the lady alongside her. Until she sees that even those claws dig into Corrin and distort her into a fangled beast that is terrifying to behold. Part of her knows, however, that those seeds were planted a long time ago in the ex-president, that those whims were always there, but even that... that does nothing to assuage Robin's nerves.

"That's why I'm here. To help you make this as painless as possible..."

Snake lets go of the president's hands for a moment, walking back to the pile of manila folders. Robin simply wants to read his mind, to dig inside and know what he's thinking. Shame? Disappointment? Pity? Empathy? There can be a myriad of reasons, of things she's simply not being told. She's sitting in this chair, in this moment and time, unsure of what to do. Unsure of where to go, who to speak to, how to go about any of it.

She's mostly disappointed in herself, actually, but she doesn't let that go out.

"Snake," an itch begins to crawl up her arms, which she scratches at. "I- I don't think I ever properly thanked you before. For Detroit. For saving me." She's surprised, most of all, how the nightmares haven't been coming back all the time, where she does not hear the sounds of gunshots in her head anymore like she did just a few days before. "I... I never really knew how to."

What comes from Snake is something she's never seen, the way he shakes his head, mouth clamped down, as if he's trying to stem the outflow of some emotion that perhaps he's never experienced before. She's always loved his loyalty, she's always appreciated it. "Don't need to mention it Robin. I- I was just doing my job. I... it's what I was made to do, Robin. Be loyal to the people I serve. It's why I agreed to be vice president for you, because you needed the help and I'm here to do it."

Something about his behavior is bothering him, but she only finds it weird when he marches over to her, this time coming around to her side of the desk, so he's now standing above her while she's sitting down, on the side of the room in the entire country that holds the most power. "Snake?" Robin asks, slightly worriedly, looking up at him underneath her own eyes. "What are you doing?"

There's tears in Snake's eyes, as he crouches down to one knee. "There was another reason why I went after you in Detroit, more than just loyalty. More than just why I stabbed Ganondorf in the throat with a knife in the council chamber. There's more than just loyalty as to why I'm in this new presidency being your vice president..." he takes a pause, slightly gasping. Robin's heartbeat is beating in her chest a mile a minute; she doesn't know how to feel, how to process this, how to take any of what he's saying. Why is he acting so strangely? "I couldn't bear the thought of losing you," Snake adds, and he takes a deep breath, as if these very words are affecting him in profound ways beyond the minute thought of human understanding.

"Snake, I-" Robin bites down on her lip. She's always felt attracted to him in a sense that most are when normal, everyday people watch musical stars sing or actors perform, enthralled by their beauty. She doesn't forget the thoughts running through her head when they spoke that quiet morning in Chicago, when he's shirtless and making breakfast, or their talk in Corrin and Cloud's mansion on the cliffside. However, as far as Robin knew, that is rudimentary attraction, her own self wants projecting themselves onto something out of her reach.

"I tried denying myself my own thoughts for a long time, Robin," Snake continues, pressing forward. "That, being in this sphere of work I didn't have time for these extra thoughts, as they'd just block me from my own progress. I'd inhibit myself in the line of duty... but I realize now that it is because of these thoughts that I have preserved past breaking points..." he tightens his grip, and this is the most genuine, single frame of life the president has ever seen, and perhaps the most vulnerable she has ever seen Snake. "I love you, Robin Wyndel. I can't deny myself that any longer. I _love_ you and I want to spend this presidency and any future endeavors alongside you if that's more than alright." He digs into his pocket, pulling out a black box that could fit in the palm of her hand. Robin's heart wells in her throat. "Robin Wyndel, will you marry me?" he asks.

She doesn't even remember saying yes, which of course she does.

Robin throws her arms around Snake, hugging him tight. "Of course I will, you dumb oaf! Of course! Yes! A million times yes!"

As the two hug, the door to the Oval Office bursts open, causing the two to retract apart. Snake has a hand immediately go to his front pocket, and that's when Robin realizes he's still packing the heat, still carrying his weapon.

It is no cause for alarm. Well... it could be, but it isn't. Standing in the doorway, so Robin knows she isn't sleep deprived as she did not imagine this, is Pit, Marth, and Midna, all coalesced together in the doorway.

"Did you do it?" Pit asks excitedly, almost like a little boy.

"What'd she say?" Midna overrides his question.

Snake looks down at the president, holding her tight to his side, and then, as he put the engagement ring on her finger, he lifts her hand up to them. "What do you think?"

The three cheer as loud as they can, making ten men feel like a thousand by the noise level. Robin lets out a nervous laugh, still crying, wiping at her eyes.

Then, in the middle of the joyous occasion, Marth turns to both Pit and Midna on his left and right, grinning. "Alright, you two. I won the bet. Give me $50."

Robin smiles at that, watching as the two grumble to themselves, digging into their wallets, making the commander of Beta Squad just a bit richer than five minutes ago. She can certainly say she didn't expect there to be tears shed today, nor did she expect someone to come into her office and ask to marry her.

She hugs Snake tight once more, breathing in his warmth.

Perhaps... just perhaps things were going to turn out alright. She knew it.

Just a certain feeling.

* * *

The sun is starting to set now, it being about six or seven in the evening, and Roy wonders why he's not back home lying down and curled up with a good book. Rather, he's out for a run, tennis shoed out, in gym shorts and a tank top as he sweats and sweats and sweats. The pounding of his feet onto the concrete and gravel drums up through his legs, shaking through his synapses, and mirroring his heartbeat, his breathing coming in and out. For once, in a long time, he's feeling somewhat relaxed as he runs, not having to look over his shoulder anymore.

Like a lone wolf, that is what Roy has recently been feeling, being away from others and staying to himself. It is not that he does not like people; he's always been a sort of people person, but he chooses a different route from his father that has been selling cattle and moonshine which involves probably taking down those that sell moonshine. Roy looks down at his hands as he runs, his skin flush from the exercise, all the blood vessels pooling to the surface. It is healthy, he rationalizes, to see skin like that, tinged a cherry pink in color instead of a more amber hue. Not too long ago, blood ran off those hands.

He hasn't picked up a gun since fighting Corrin and the rest of her secret service agents off with Sheik. Something about it, feeling the heaviness of the weapon bringing his palm down the ground, it affects him profoundly. It is not to say he doesn't regret his past and what he's done, he's way beyond feeling guilty about that. He's happy what happened transpired the way it did, the way the world is safe, a mad woman and her lackey is gone, and that's that. Resonating in his soul is one of the last things Corrin screamed at him when they were in the cottage. How Shulk Roberts is not Roy Arcadia's friend, and probably never had been.

Roy doesn't know why he started saying those things, that Shulk is _his_ friend, he realizes they were never truly compatriots. The blonde man introduced him to the grand, albeit fake world of Syrenet that only he knew about, took him out to get breakfast and a few drinks in the same span of a day after being released from a hospital, left himself behind while the lads went drinking, and had a long walk down a sewer which led to Roy being mutilated, and ending up killing his own mentor... nothing in there truly spelled friendship, yet Roy feels this deep down. He misses Shulk, slightly. Despite usually being as depressing and interesting as a doornail, there's something electric about the now deceased commander that'll forever leave Roy guessing. Perhaps his sarcasm... Roy's not quite sure.

He knows that he took a likeliness to Shulk partly in fact for the reason he didn't make any friends whilst in his FBI training. Midna is a level above him, already having been an agent, and he never meets Snake until the end of the training and graduation, although he doesn't think even now he and the now vice president are friends, let alone compatriots in arms or whatever the saying. Roy goes through that experience alone, and at the time, receives an offer on a silver platter, which could be the best thing in the world for him except that he has to reach out and take it. If he didn't... then that's his problem.

Roy continues his run, coming to a more heavily wooded area part of the sidewalk, where ash and elm trees spiral above him, and underneath them, covered by lustrous shade, are a few wooden benches, a water fountain, and a nice little fountain off to the side. It's quite pretty, and he stops to take a drink, being mindful not to place his lips to close to the spout, as he does not want to get a sudden case of E-coli. When he retracts from the water fountain, turning his head about to continue his run, he tilts his head to the side somewhat, scoffing.

"You're kidding me..." he says to himself, dropping his hands.

Sitting on one of the benches, currently fixing their shoe on their right foot, is Midna. The very same Midna Nye extraordinaire, now the FBI director and making far more money than Roy has ever in his life. He shrugs his shoulders. The worst thing that could happen right now is be rejected of having a conversation, or that she could bite his head off. Either way, he's got nothing much to lose. He hasn't seen her since he came out surgery, getting Ganondorf's copper wires taken out of his hand.

He jogs over to her, probably smelling rotten, looking even worse more likely, all disheveled and out of breath.

"Hey," he waves with a hand.

She looks up at him, and for a brief second, there's a moment of replication back when they first met. Despite it not being the first time they meet, at Link's compound, it most certainly feels like it the way his heart stops after seeing her. Something about the way her hair hits her neck, the more darker skin tone drawing a beautiful quality to her eyes... her lips, and again, he's transported four months back by this point, as caught off guard as he had been the first time. The water in his mouth dries up, and it is like he forgot how to speak.

"Hey!" Midna says back, adding a bit more enthusiasm to it.

He sits down next to her, crossing one leg onto the other so he can massage his ankles. He's been running for about forty minutes now, building the endurance up for something that might never come, depending on the path of life he decides to wander down. He cannot believe it's been a month and a half since he's last seen her.

"How've you been?" he asks.

"Stressed as hell," she says, running a hand through her hair that is looking more amber today than before. Roy can confidently say that whenever he looks at red hair he no longer thinks of a cyborg demon in the sewers. It's such a strange place for a technological innovation - truth be told, that _is_ what Ganondorf had become - to hide, or whatever the word that would be used. A sewer. Now Roy can only laugh. "I got a call from Sheik this morning."

Roy snaps his head at her, frowning. He hasn't heard that name in quite sometime either, still mentally kicking himself that he misses the bigger picture and now the most wanted person by the FBI in the world is at large due to his own mistakes, getting caught up in watching Corrin die... and he'd be wanting to watch the silverette queen die for awhile. "What about?"

Midna sets her shoulders down, having taken a long sigh. "Nothing good. Mainly taunting me and the rest of us for not having her in custody yet. She congratulated me on becoming director, which I actually thought was genuine... and then I told her the country would hunt her down for her crimes." Midna makes a face. "It might not have been my most suave moment."

"You think?" Roy asks amusedly, lifting his eyebrows.

"She told me she's done with being rebellious. That she'll settle down somewhere away from the country and live peacefully."

A snort. "As if."

"I called her insane."

"She is, Midna," Roy agrees. To think, even for a fraction of a second that he trusts the blonde because of her word. He's distrusted people in his life who had a lot more riding on their name than simply Sheik's word of mouth.

"It simply was just another one of our usual conversations," Midna stretches her hands out together, rubbing them back up her leg, sighing. "How could I be so stupid?"

"If anyone's being stupid here, it's me. I agreed to have her come with me to the mansion instead of immediately being arrested..." Roy rubs the back of his neck. "I couldn't get out of my head the fact that I wanted Corrin to pay for what she had done, so I was willing to accept anyone's help. You should've come along..." he motions a hand at her. "I didn't because I didn't want you getting hurt. Now we have to endure this wild goose chase all because of _my_ stupidity."

Midna doesn't say anything, instead keeping to herself while she looks at him, and Roy can only think of what is going on through her head. Meanwhile, though, he appraises over her too, trying not to be judgmental. She's sitting more upright than before, shoulders back and down. Though this may just be because she is out running, there's not as much makeup on her face. Roy remembers, when she helps fight the half-man half-machine from hell, that even then, in the middle of a warzone that she has foundation on, and he does find it sort of ridiculous. But, then, he gets a look at _her,_ for the first time, noticing that she's not rail thin. She had been, always, even back in high school now that he thinks about it, skinny, in a very unhealthy way. Here, however, there's a comfortableness to her in demeanor and a size that Roy isn't worried about.

She follows his gaze, and gives a slight smile. "Yeah... I- uh... due to Snake talking me about it, I decided to go see a therapist about dieting. To help with my bulimia, and it's been helping actually," she lets out a nervous laugh. "Turns out my deadbeat of a husband got arrested for selling drugs. Can't say it isn't karma. He deserves it," she looks down at her body. "He deserves it for doing this to me."

"I'm sorry," Roy apologizes, but he doesn't quite know what for.

She shrugs her shoulders. "There's no need to apologize," Midna awkwardly rubs her shoulder. "Listen, um, Roy... the word is, between everyone else that after tomorrow, you're going to go away?"

There it is. The question he has been waiting for. Roy expects it, anticipates it, just doesn't know when it is going to show up. He made it quite known to Pit and Marth on several occasions after the two commanders begged him to take Ike's position as commander for Charlie Squad that once Robin's memorial announcement is finished, he's outta the country to clear his head. Where? He's not so sure. Perhaps Syrenet isn't the place for him, the FBI might not be either. Maybe he could become a shoelace salesman somewhere.

"Yeah..." he exhales.

"Where to?"

"I haven't figured that out yet. Maybe someplace in Europe," Roy shakes his head. "I just know I can't stay here right now. Too many memories."

"I don't want you to go, Roy," Midna urges, placing a hand on his thigh.

He gives her a weak smile. "Unfortunately, right now, it isn't what you want Midna. I _can't_ be here."

She nods, biting down on her lower lip. "I understand. Any idea what you want to do?"

"No. And I sort of plan on keeping it like that."

Midna looks up at the sky, shaking her head somewhat. "I remember, back in Chicago, what went on when we were on that roof. You remember what you said?"

Roy remembers for sure. It is the first time he had cried in a long time with someone that isn't himself in front of a mirror, let alone from not a wound that is physical. It is a metaphysical one inside his heart, in front of Midna no less, an overall humiliating experience. "Yeah. That I hated killing. That it didn't feel natural and..."

"It wasn't for you," she finishes for him. "Do you still feel the same?"

He shrugs. "If anything, since Shulk and Corrin, that feeling has multiplied," and then a nervous laugh himself. "Doesn't matter. It's a part of me, I think. Violence will follow me and I'll kill in that path too. Kinda hard not to, I think."

"Well, maybe it means you're in the wrong business," and there's a bit of humor to that, pointed by a slight smirk on Midna's end.

"Perhaps," he agrees.

Midna runs a hand through her hair, taking another sigh, then down to her hands, fiddling with them. She has no jewelry on her hands, as running with clunky pieces of metal is always going to slow her down. She is carrying a gun inside her duffel bag which she has with her, Roy just now noticing it, as there's no way the FBI director is going to be running, even in the middle of D.C's closest thing to nowhere without protection. "How are your hands doing?"

He looks down at them, wound clean, clean of any blood, no copper wires in sight. "Good. The burning stopped awhile ago. They were numb for a couple of days, but not anymore. I'm fine now."

She continues to fiddle with her hands. "When Robin and I were watching your surgery, we were talking and you and Mac got mentioned in the conversation. One thing led to another and then it ended up coming out that she asked me how I felt about you. I had to say it, because I think lying to the president could be some federal offense and that... uh... well... I said I loved you," at this, Midna turns away, not looking at the other redhead, biting on her nails. "And I continued speaking even though I know Robin didn't want to know it, and I said I couldn't live without you. I, uh... I love you Roy. I don't want you to leave for wherever and-"

Roy drowns out perhaps half of that monologue, and even selfishly perhaps does his ears pick up on the fact that Midna declares it, almost like a sweet spot, ' _I love you_ ', and his ears roar with blood. It's been a tumultuous road, since getting signed up for Syrenet and running into Midna again at Link's in Boston. Then she sacrifices herself to save him out of the arms dealer's clutches and that brings a whole new realm to the word of acquaintance. Being the only one to visit him in the hospital... and then it is like something he cannot reach, just staring at her behind Plexiglas and if he even dares breathe, there's sirens blaring. Once it is very clear where she stands with Mac, Roy knows he has to stay away. He's had trouble before with distancing himself properly with other attached women he knows, once it's come out that he definitely likes them.

It doesn't help, that yes, Roy finds Midna to be extremely beautiful, even though her sexual desire has to be used as a weapon in instances. However, once her and Mac have become an item, it makes things worse when she is still approaching him, all friendly, more a problem of his than hers as she's simply being herself, yet he has to remind himself, in his head, to stay away. Then Mac is killed, and it is as if one bird flew over the cuckoo's nest. He has to let her mourn, in some capacity, even if Midna and Mac were only together for a few weeks, as it's still a partnership, and he's gone. He's loved Midna for the longest time, Roy has; he even asked her to prom and always wondered what came of her.

He had been jealous of Mac and Midna's relationship, wanting just a slice of the pie... and he's ashamed for it.

However, as her words roll off her tongue and over his ears, the dead secret service agent no longer appears in his line of sight, nor in his vision. Midna Nye is in love with him, admitted it to the president of the United States, and is admitting it now.

He scoots closer to her on the bench, resting a hand on her shoulder, which prompts her to look back at him.

Colliding like asteroids into the atmosphere, he presses his lips up against hers, his body flush against hers as well, wrapping an arm around her waist. She's caught off guard a bit by the kiss, but she meshes into his form as well, keeping the contact for a few seconds before breaking apart, her breathing catching back up quickly. Her eyes are widened somewhat, Roy's softening, eyelids fluttering.

"I love you Midna," he exhales, all the breaths he had going into that kiss. "I- I think I've always loved you." He holds her hands in his, pressing down on the knuckles, warmth spreading across both of their palms. She is looking a bit dazed, still caught off guard from the embrace, mouth partly open. "And because I love you, that is why I have to go away. If I stay here for too long, I don't know what will happen; I just need some time to myself. Should I stay, I- I don't even know what. Because I love you, I must protect you. If I could stay here in the States, Midna, I would. I'm sorry..."

Roy shakes his head, letting go off Midna's hands, hers dropping to the side, he getting off the bench, feet touching back on the gravel. Without even as so much as uttering a goodbye, he begins to jog off, and the FBI director, despite the words on her tongue, there's nothing she can say that will cause him to turn around.

Midna presses a hand to her lips, the sensuality of the kiss lingering behind, before looking back at him, wondering what in the hell just happened.

She watches him go, and he watches himself keep the future intact the best he can.

It is out of her hands now.

* * *

The world begins and ends inside Roy's head to thunderous applause. It is hot outside, this time a venue sponsored by Robin and the United States government actually being done outside, as apparently the citizens are trustworthy again. He is currently standing right next to Snake, Midna, Pit, Marth, and a few of the other remaining Syrenet squad commanders that have stayed behind, including the one dressed all in black who will not stop staring at him, while Robin, on a pedestal a bit away from them is at the podium, speaking to the gathered crowd. Behind the president is supposedly a monument, but to what, Roy has no idea. It could be a very good thing, and maybe even a bad thing, but he's been invited, as has a lot of the other political officials currently in office, and so he arrives.

After the party, he has a flight out of Reagan to London, England, where he'll stay with a distant relative, a cousin once or twice removed, just to vacation. He thinks, perhaps, he'll go hunting in the Outback, but he needs to reach Australia first. Like a lone wolf does, hunting in a pack alone, he might travel the world alone. Find himself for a bit, see what he wants and likes, and maybe he'll find himself in the process and return to a nation kept stable by Robin and Snake's good politicizing.

Speculating what's underneath the tarp that is currently covering the five of them in conversation, a bet going on at about three hundred dollars. Pit is shooting the shit and probably missing that it's something towards Corrin, Robin's last attempt at trying to keep the ex-president's life in immortality, lest saving her from infamy. Midna and Marth agree it might be for the recent bombing that The White Wolf, Midna's latest case, the second most wanted person in the world, who just a few days ago destroyed a hotel in Ukraine that held, once again, thirty-two people which died in the firestorm. Snake goes a bit more pointedly on that, saying it'd be the first attack that brought this White Wolf character to the headlines, the attack in Austria. Roy goes out of left-field, it is a monument towards Syrenet. He's been on several phone calls with the president now, for some reason she trusting his advice more than her advisors, on what the next step for the technological project should be... and she's designating towards peacekeeping.

Robin taps on the microphone, it silencing the crowd in a quick few hushes, Roy looking over and the dark clad woman's eyes are locked on his rather than the president's. "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much for coming out today in this heat to celebrate and witness the revealing of one of our new monuments to remember events in our nation's history," she parades a hand across the skyline behind the crowd. "Behind you all is a horizon full of marble structures. Memorials dedicated to past presidents, like Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln. The Washington Monument is the tallest among us. Then, there are memorials, such as the Vietnam War. The wall for World War II, and the Holocaust," she lifts her head. "These are remembrances of times past in the world and the United States history when things were dark, when the horizon may not have seemed as clear, where it was bleak. In these times, the American people united together, and I cannot think of a time, unless it has been since 9/11, where the American people have united quite like this. I imagine many of you know exactly what I am talking about."

A chill runs through Roy's body. Midna leans in to whisper. "I think you're winning this bet, Roy..."

"Behind me, after much deliberation on how to have it designed, we have come to a conclusion. Recently, just months ago, the president before me, Corrin Etch, had a program called Syrenet. Many of the agents and commanders and other officers associated with the program are here at this meeting today. Syrenet, at its very roots, was supposed to be a program that had two halves, one dedicated to bettering communities with accessible technologies, providing jobs, and an infrastructure. The other worked like our intelligence agencies, a militant side to them, which is the purpose of these officers and commanders," she takes a deep breath. "Somewhere along the way, things shifted, and Corrin wanted to use Syrenet as a means to an end, a scapegoat for her personal agenda on ruling this country without opposition. Against that opposition grew rebellion from three sections of this country, our southern states, the Midwest, and the Pacific Ocean. These groups were tasked to be against Syrenet, to bring it down and end Corrin's plan, although at the time, that was unware to all of us..."

"She's got guts, I'll admit that..." Pit rubs the back of his neck.

"In the end of the ordeal, the rebels ended up killing thousands upon thousands of people in hope to bring this new agenda to an end... and it even claimed Corrin's life for she could not be without her agenda. Behind me, is a memorial, a monument to be erected that'll have the names of those who perished within the monthly period from the time we were to start an economic branch in Oklahoma City to the explosive skirmish that ended it all in Detroit. Thousands of names here, placed on this monument for one purpose..." Robin straightens her back, locking her jaw. "Never again will the office of the presidency be exploited to use an agenda in that manor, and to also exacerbate that any sort of violent terms to try and knock down a revolution, hidden motives or not, will not be tolerated, as the amount of lives lost in this endeavor is more than a few of our led wars by this country against enemies that were not American citizens or otherwise," she pauses, clearing her throat. "Names are etched all the way alongside this monument. If this nation will do me the honor of accepting this homage to the Syrenetic disaster of the year 2096."

When she finishes her speech, the crowd claps, Roy the loudest of all - he's winning money, he was _right_ \- and the tarp is lifted, his mouth immediately drying up.

The shape of the monument is an obelisk.

An obelisk.

Not just any obelisk.

It is designed, although not entirely, in the shape and design of Detroit's Needle... and that turns his blood to ice. Thunderous applause follows Robin's end, and all Roy can do is take note of what he's looking at, a slight seed of betrayal laying down deep in his stomach. Then, he begins reading the names. The monument is not very tall, but only for a select few will they notice the tip top, this name written in the largest font on the entire structure.

In a golden font, cursively written, is the name, _Fiora Roberts._

Roy's heart wells up in his throat. It is indeed Fiora's death that sort of catapults the whole thing into perspective, which digs into Corrin's paranoia and power hungry ego... which leads to Sheik reading between the lines, and then everything else falls into place. He almost wants to cry. Forever, not just via a gravestone and Robin's journal, will she live on.

When the time is right, after Robin has stopped waving, after there are no more pictures being taken and it is just the crowd, he marches over to her.

He grips her by the wrist, which catches her off guard somewhat.

"An obelisk, Robin? You couldn't think of any other shape? Any others?"

Robin's face is crestfallen, but she keeps the smile, she's in front of many more others than just Roy Arcadia. "It was necessary, Roy. I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier, I-"

There'd be more the president would probably say, but she doesn't get the chance to. Out of the corner of Roy's eye, he sees Midna turn into herself a bit, having a comm device in her ear. She presses the earpiece somewhat, seemingly talking to someone else through the communication device. Then, the redhead rights herself like a rocket, face devoid of all color. Uh-oh. That can't be good.

Midna locks eyes with Robin, marching straight up to her. The president looks between Roy and Midna, unsure of what to do. This isn't the head of the secret service detail... it's the FBI director, and then there's Snake hot on her heels.

"Midna?" Robin asks, frowning.

"Something's wrong," Midna says cryptically, face still pale.

"What is?"

"We need to get to the Situation Room, Madam President."

"Why?"

Midna takes a deep breath, and Roy's world shatters once more. "The White Wolf has struck again..."

* * *

Sheik loves the outside world, when she's not worried about the FBI or CIA or another rabid silverette like her mother hunting her down. The air in Sweden is far more healthy than any she's encountered in the United States before, she can say that much. She's currently standing in a crowded plaza in front of one of Sweden's most popular buildings in Stockholm, surrounded by Swedish people for some sort of musical festival. She's not paying all that much attention to the music, as it is in a language she cannot understand; she isn't fluent in much besides English, and she has a minor comprehension in German, but the musicians and singers are not singing German. The music has been disrupted, as the Swedish prime minister is currently, again, not in English, talking, but Sheik doesn't know... _again._

However, she isn't even in Stockholm, surrounded by all these people she doesn't know because she wants to be confused. In her hands is a letter, found on her hotel room desk this morning when she stepped out of the shower, a towel wrapped around her waist and head. Her roots are no longer blonde, now going for a more sepia color to try and distinguish herself from the American Midwest rebel. It'll be hard to lose the accent, unfortunately, but she's working on it. Sheik Braring is no longer Sheik Braring, but rather a Zelda Hyrule, a diplomat for a water company out of Switzerland, and she is in Sweden on business. She knows that Midna won't be searching for her legal name anymore, as Samantha Braring died alongside her mother in that house in Norfolk, but there'll be prowling for someone else like her.

She fears that the letter is from Midna, but it isn't. She's read it ten times since this morning, looking at it again while stuck in the crowd.

 _Dear Sheik Braring,_

 _Would you prefer Samantha Braring? Or perhaps your new name of Zelda Hyrule? I imagine you're wondering how I know this, but a magician never reveals his tricks. You just watch for the punchline, and then it happens and you're mystified. I imagine you must be wondering who this is as well, and I have never been an amazing purveyor of suspense. My name is Kuro, and I have a last name somewhere that I am unable to find in this great large world. Though some might call me a terrorist or a vigilante, like others who are blessed with my mind call ourselves visionaries. That is what you are, aren't you? A visionary? You saw the plague that crippled your country with your mother, Corrin Etch, the president, and tried removing her root and stem until none of the infection was left._

 _I am proud of your efforts, of your dedication. The work you did in America was marvelous, and through it all you survived with your head on your shoulders! I commend you immensely. However, again, I noticed a hastiness in your approach, a messiness that left so many lives taken for granted. Life is a precious thing, and as you'll see soon enough, I only take what is needed, what is necessary, in order to maintain balance._

 _I am asking to meet you, in person. I want to see the person you are in front of my very eyes, unless the information I have received about you is false, and otherwise I shall be so disappointed. I'll be in Sweden this week, just like you, visiting their stupid music festival which I believe is meant to honor corn or some crop. That is irrelevant, but our meeting is not. Though you do not know what you look like, I do. When I'm ready to meet, you'll see my signal and I will be there. I hope you enjoy this meeting, Miss Braring or Miss Hyrule, whichever you prefer. I know I will. Until then, farewell._

 _Signed,_

 _The White Wolf_

Sheik personally believes all of this to be a hoax. It is some strange man matching her through a dating app and wanting to impress her, as she hasn't even decided to keep the last name as Hyrule for her new identity. She feels like she's being stood up, curiosity killing the cat and forcing her to come out to the festival. She wanted to go sightseeing, but that isn't happening, and she's going to be pissed if she's left out to dry by someone who can't even show their face.

She made up her mind minutes ago, and she turns to leave when something out of the corner of her eye stops her. Sheik tilts her head, gaze going to the stage. Is the microphone that the prime minister is holding... is it _glowing?_ Her eyes don't seem to be tricked, or kept under a spell or drug. The microphone the prime minister is holding as he's speaking is starting to glow a violent crimson.

There's an explosion of action, a suited man running up towards the stage, and all the hair on her body stands on end. The man tackles the prime minister, knocking him back from the microphone when the front of the stage, the _entire_ front of the stage erupts in a thrust of fire, ash, shrapnel, and sulfur.

Her ears pop from the sound, the crowd screaming in terror, flames incinerating the particles in the sky. Chaos as the dust settles, and surely there must be people dead, the explosion going through the front of the stage and into the crowd... and Sheik is feeling sick to her stomach. This isn't her, this isn't her at all; she's done with that life. Why did- why did she even join the meeting and-

Sheik goes to turn when a man is standing behind her, grinning wickedly, all of her breaths getting taken in a second.

He holds his arms out wide, one hand holding a trigger, his left finger pressed down on a center button that is glowing red. His eyes appraise over the now turned brunette, grinning ever still. "Sheik Braring! It is a pleasure to meet you!"

Her heart hammers in her chest, and then the world explodes once more, the back half of the stage erupting into another volcanic thrust.

"I'm the White Wolf," Kuro bows, and then, again, he presses down on the explosive device.

Sheik's vision goes white as another sulfurous upheaval hits the sky.

* * *

 _Coming Summer / Fall of 2019_

 _The White Wolf_

* * *

 **This AN just might be the longest one I've ever written. Bear with me... please.**

 **Guys... I'm currently holding my computer right now, and I'm sobbing. Here we are. The end, this was Chapter #40: In Memoriam... and there's my surprise. There's to be a sequel, next year, all dedicated to the aftermath of Syrenet: it was just the beginning and I am sitting here and I can't believe it. Now, 16.5k words later, already at 361k and this entire epic is done guys. An actual literal freaking piece of literature. I could turn this original, I think, if I really wanted to... and I am sitting here numb that Syrenet is over.**

 **I remember, two years ago, when I started this piece. I remember saying it would be the largest thing I ever wrote, but even then at 40 chapters I have two stories with more chapters in them... but then this piece is twice the size of my now second largest story which has seven more chapters. All the hours and sweat and blood and tears that have gone into this have literally destroyed me in a profound way. Words cannot say how much I love Syrenet, how I didn't have a truly full direction for it, but here it is and I am so proud of it.**

 **There'll be no more Corrin, no more Shulk, or Mac or Roy or any of these renditions of characters I have written, and I don't think I'll love the cast of a story as much as I have loved this one. I didn't hate writing a single one of these characters, and although some of them did not have the spotlight they could have (looks at Ness, Cloud, and Link), I still enjoyed them. And while most of their stories aren't complete yet, with another four new characters now for White Wolf, it is clear to see that this 40 chapter epic encapsulates a lot.**

 **One chapter being 3.1k words I thought was a gracious beginning... and then _this._ It just evolved out of my hands and I am so happy it has. Thank you, just thank you to all the readers who have read past that terrible action written Foundations of Earth to the gargantuan Council of Thirteen at 15.4k, to then last chapter's 17.7k... and this finale. Thank you. It is for the readers like you guys, and my faithful reviewers that have strived me forward. Without you guys, I don't think this story would get to where it has become. **

**I must say thank you to SeththeGreat, Mr. Squirtle6, CrashGuy01, Derick Lindsay, Maxcy Leland, and a few of my other reviewers for your kind words, your thoughts, and most of all your advice. I am greatly honored to have had your interest in this story and I hope you've appreciated the journey. If you've made it this far, as I do with all of my long stories of any capacity, I'd be honored if you answered these questions... just as the ending thoughts to close it all off.**

 **1) Who were your favorite characters? Who were your least favorite characters? Why or why not? (I'm expecting a lot of Corrin, Shulk, and Sheik for the latter half.)**

 **2) What were your favorite and least favorite parts of the story? (I'm kinda expecting a range)**

 **3) Your favorite chapter title? (Yes, you can cheat and look over the large list of 40. Personally, mine was Lucas's Nebular Network, Collins' Arithmetic, and Foraging Harvest)**

 **4) Favorite arc? Arc #1, which is Chapters 1-10 / Arc #2, which is Chapters 11-20 / Arc #3, which is Chapters 21-30 / Arc #4, which is Chapters 31-40. Least favorite as well? Why or why not? (Mine was Arc #2, even though I loved all of them)**

 **5) Any other general thoughts or specifics you'd like to put down?**

 **6) Shall I see you for the sequel next year, _The White Wolf?_**

 **I understand I am asking a lot of you guys, if you review, but it'd mean the world to me, more than you know, for all that Syrenet has gone to. I am more than excited for _The White Wolf,_ an idea that I've had in the back of my head for quite sometime, and it will expand the cast of living characters now with Bayonetta, Captain Falcon, Luigi, Kuro, and more I've yet to reveal! The story won't be as long chapter or word count wise, either, but it'll still be more than 100k.**

 **I've spent the last three hours writing the rest of this chapter (the last 6000 words or so) and I'm exhausted, but also crying and proud. Again, if you've reached the end of this piece, again, thank you. This is my fifth most viewed piece, sitting at around 8900 views - which is a lot for me, usually - and I imagine it'll go up. I cannot believe Syrenet is over. If you haven't yet, go and vote on my poll that is on my profile about your top four favorite Syrenet characters; I'm excited for the responses. If you want something else to read from me in the Smash fandom, I suggest checking out my other piece, Brinstar Depths, almost at the end of its life cycle, as I have a new chapter coming out this Friday.**

 **Once more, thank you. That was the end of Syrenet, Chapter #40: In Memoriam. Now, to the future, to _The White Wolf._ I love you all so much. Have an amazing evening! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


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